TULSA, Okla. — It's easy to spot active school zones if you're driving on busy streets like 71st or Garnett.
Speeding in an active school zone will get you an automatic court date. If found guilty, you face fines and the possibility of jail time.
But, it can be difficult to tell if a school zone is active if you turn into it from a side street, home, or business within the school zone.
We first started digging into this issue last week:
It prompted drivers like Laurie Maurer and Terry Doverspike to contact the City of Tulsa, asking for better warnings. Both want flashing lights to warn drivers when school zones are active.
It is not going to happen.
The Tulsa Traffic Department installed signs exiting Maurer's neighborhood across Garnett from Union's 8th Grade Center and McAuliffe Elementary and coming out of Doverspike's neighborhood on South 73rd East Avenue and East 71st Street.
But, those signs do not indicate what time of day the school zones are active.
“Whenever they finally put up the sign," said Maurer, "it doesn’t have any time zones on it; it just says school zone, so you’re supposed to pull out and assume that every time you pull out onto Garnett, you’re in the school zone?"
"Yes," is the answer we got from Kurt Kraft. He is the manager of Tulsa Traffic Operations.
"A street is 25 unless posted otherwise," he said. "If you don't know what speed it is, I mean what you should do is driver slower until you're sure."
He also recommends drivers turning into potentially active school zones take cues from other drivers' speed.
"You can't go off the people driving," said Maurer. "I've pulled out in a school zone, and people have just flown by me."
According to the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, Tulsa's Traffic Department marks school zones.
It is the national standard. It calls for marking the beginning and end of school zones but does not require signs with times or flashing lights to warn drivers from side streets inside the zone that the zone is active.
Mark Bussey brought a different school zone warning issue to our attention.
Some drivers turning into school zones from side streets inside the zone can't see the flashing yellow lights warning the zone is active, but can see a small flashing white light on its back side as their cue to slow down.
Kraft tells 2 News that white lights are not required and are called confirmation lights to let school crossing guards see when school zones are active. Confirmation lights are not intended for use by drivers.
Mark Bussey and other drivers turning south onto Garnett from 7th Street do look to the flashing white light on the back of the yellow flashing light to when the school zone is in effect for Lewis and Clark Elementary.
Bussey sent us the emails he sent to the City of Tulsa over a period of months asking for that light to be fixed.
He received a reply that it was fixed but showed 2 News it was not.
We checked Aug. 30, it wasn't working, and again on Sept 3. We showed Kraft copies of those emails and the City's response that same afternoon. He assured us he would have the light fixed. Shortly before 8 pm that night, a city spokesperson sent this text message:
We confirmed the light is working so both school crossing guards and drivers know when this school zone is active.
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