Dairy Flat School is making a concerted effort to bring down the speed of traffic that roars past its entrance on the busy Dairy Flat Highway.
The daily ‘organised chaos’ of the dropping off and collection of children is compounded at the rural school by the number of cars that need to squeeze into as safe a parking spot as possible. A public bus stop right outside the school further limits parking space. Buses take around 70–90 of the children to and from school, and the rest of the 275 students are transported by car each day.
Principal Debbie Marshall says because of a lack of pedestrian accessways, not one student can walk, cycle or scooter to and from school. “There is no safe area on the road for students to walk, ride or cycle. The traffic is going past at 80 and then 100kph and there is not even a shoulder on the road. It is too dangerous for our students to walk,” she says. “It causes major congestion.”
For this reason, the school is lobbying for a pathway to be built from the school to Postman Road, around 800m away, enabling children to walk to and from there for collection by parents.
However, it is the speed of passing traffic – including around one truck every minute – that is the main concern and something that the school is currently working on with Police, Auckland Council and Auckland Transport’s Travelwise arm.
In 2013 the speed past the school was reduced from 100kph to 80kph thanks to a concerted effort that Ms Marshall says “took years”. About the same time, the speed past the school was reduced to 60kph at drop off and pick up times. Recently flashing electronic signs reminding drivers of the 60kph speed limit, which are activated from the school’s office at peak times, were installed.
Despite this, drivers frequently exceed those limits. Last month students and their principal, armed with high visibility jackets and a speed laser gun provided by Travelwise, recorded the speeds of vehicles passing the school.
Not only does the data they collected over six days show that 28 percent of the vehicles were exceeding the 60kph speed limit, but they also witnessed a near miss as a car turning into their school carpark was almost hit by a truck going at 72kph.
The data will be used as evidence to support the school’s case for a reduction of the speed limit.
Ms Marshall would like to see the speed past the school dropped from 80kph to 60kph at all times. “The speed is 40kph in school zones and that’s not possible for us because of the highway. But 60kph seems reasonable – we are a community school and people are coming and going throughout the day.”
She says as well as making submissions to Council, and AT, the student council has worked on raising awareness in the school community through handing out information, and even tickets, in its Kiss’n’ Drop zone.
“We’ve been really lucky that there have been no accidents as yet. We want to keep it that way.”
