During the time that the school has resided in its current location, there has always been a constant problem with traffic control. The vehicle's that travel on Us Hwy 1, are always speeding by and do not even look to see if there are any student's trying to cross the street. There have been several accidents due to the manner in which the drivers conduct themselves, as they pass by the School. Our office contacted The Florida Department of Transportation, which will be referred to as FDOT. They stated to us that if we wanted to have signs placed on US Hwy 1, that we were going have to go and purchase them and if we wanted traffic cone's that we would have to hire a POLICE OFFICER, to put them out and direct traffic. The City of Edgewater Police Department was contacted and requested that they allow a marked Citizens Assisting Police (CAP) Patrol car sit out in the median with the vehicle's emergency warning lights flashing. The Motors Sergeant stated to us that he would have been by sooner to inform us to remove the traffic cones, but I quote "I have been so busy with traffic at the Public Schools.
There are at least three marked Police Patrol cars, one unmarked, and three Police motorcycles that have been out in front of Edgewater Elementary School in the morning. We the students, teachers, and parents, should not be punished because we are not a public school. The Public schools do not have to pay for the Police Officers to sit in front of the schools, nor do they have to pay to have their signs installed, so why should we? What is it going to take before the State gets off there cushion and fill the Duties and Responsibility of the office in which they promised in there campaign speeches? If they are able to provide traffic control, during bike week, and other special events, then there is no reason for them to not be able to do the same kind of traffic control for us.
We are not asking for the city or state to put up a multi thousand dollar School Zone Caution light over US Highway 1, we are asking for two signs that that flash displaying SCHOOL ZONE 25 mph. Just like in the school zones for public schools. By placing the traffic cones on the Highway alone for the short period of time that we did had an overwhelmingly positive effect, it slowed cars down enough that there was a nice enough break in traffic that the parents could cross with there children without impeding the traffic flow. It also helped to avoid any rear end collisions that could have happened to parents turning off of US 1 into our driveway.
Every time that someone finds something that makes a difference in something there is always someone in the way trying to stop it. In this case, the traffic cones being out, alerted motorists to the fact that there is a school here and it is open.
During the duration that the school has been at its current location, there has been an on going problem, with the traffic on US Hwy 1. The cars constantly speed by the school rendering the crossing of students unsafe. The parent that walk there children to school, are afraid that one of their children are going to get hit and seriously injured and that they may result in hopitalization or even death. There is NO excuse that there can not be a school zone established, because of the school zones that public schools have that are a mile away from the school. The MAIN 4 LANE highway is right out in front of our school.
