Portable Yield Signs for Local Schools: Good or Bad?

[XLFD]

The Mason County Press reports: 

 

LUDINGTON — Ludington City Council is expected to act on traffic control order’s issued by Police Chief Mark Barnett during its regular meeting Monday night at 6:30 p.m.

The orders establish yield signs in or near crosswalks at locations near schools in the city limits. The signs are being established because traffic hazards to pedestrians exist.

Those locations include:

• North Gaylord Avenue at Haight Street (north and south sides of intersection)
• Anderson Street west of Franklin Street (south to Ludington Ave.)
• Tinkham Avenue east of Washington Avenue
• North Washington Avenue north of Fitch Street
• North Washington Avenue south of Stray Street
• South Washington Avenue at Foster Street
• Easter Filer Street west of South Emily Street
• East Filer Street west of South Lavinia Street

Portable yield signs will be placed at the locations during school hours (8 a.m. through 4 p.m.) only requiring vehicle traffic to “yield when pedestrians are present.”

Some of the locations already have portable yield signs.

The middle school already has a portable yield sign at the third location for a safety zone (a crosswalk not adjacent to an intersection).  To my knowledge, it is typically not there for the full eight hours between 8 AM and 4 PM.   To find out whether these portable yield signs are warranted for the area, let's check the latest MUTCD Manual, depicted above.  Here's a link to the regulatory signs, including stop and yield signs. 

 

On p. 50, it states that yield and stop signs are not to be used for speed control, a standard that overzealous localities typically ignore, and what the chief seems to want to do here.  A search through the manual shows no reference to putting one of these signs at safety zones.  Page 54-56 talks about "yield/stop for pedestrians" signs to be used before an uncontrolled (no signs) intersection.  As per the law, if you come to a yield or stop sign at an intersection, you are to stop and yield for vehicle and pedestrian traffic  MCL 257.649.

 

As such, the portable yield signs for crosswalks are not a MUTCD standard or is it ever warranted by this manual.  Police Chief Barnett, as the City of Ludington Traffic Engineer, can make local traffic control orders and enforce them, but he should also be able to justify them. 

 

                                                   A Ludington yield sign within a school zone (2011)

 

But doesn't these signs make the area safer?  Well, if you consider more vehicles will avoid the over-regulated area, you may be right.  But consider that you could close down all the roads in a designated school zone and basically make that area almost 100% secure.  So the kids could walk with impunity in this area, but what happens when they walk out of the area?  Wouldn't they have developed some bad habits that could make their survival more difficult outside that zone? 

 

When I was taught how to cross streets, I made sure I would not enter the crosswalk if I would hamper the flow of traffic.  Pedestrians have the responsibility to enter the roadway when it is safe to do so, and it should be stressed that if they don't, they will always lose in a collision with a two ton or more vehicle.  I may be mistaken, but kids nowadays seem to take it more for granted that cars will stop for them, part of the new entitlement mentality, perhaps.  They walk with their backs to traffic with their headphones on, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the motorists behind them may be just as irresponsible.   However, many do not realize that motorists are as distracted as ever from cell phones, auto gadgets, and even excess signage.