It's Been Over Four Years! Who at City Hall is not paying attention?

The John L. Edwards Elementary School closed more than 4 years ago, and it doesn't look like another school will ever take its place at State and Carrol. But you wouldn't know that if you assumed that the several street signs still there related to school hours and a school speed limit were accurate.  And that is what drivers are expected to do and must do -- assume that the signs put up for us to see and read are accurate and to be abided by, not outdated and no longer valid.

What a city should avoid is having drivers take their eyes off of the road, even for one second, to read a sign that looks official and valid, but is actually meaningless.

What a city should avoid is cluttering its streets with signs that are not accurate or even valid.

What a city should avoid is creating confusion with drivers and parkers by not removing outdated signs that are no longer helpful or valid or being so old                                                  and faded that they are unreadable.                                         

There are several effective ways to slow traffic down, also known as traffic calming measures.  Utilizing a 20 mph limit school zone sign where no school exists is definitely not one of them.  In fact, it is really dumb to do that.  You don't want drivers suddenly slowing down for a sign that lost its significance years ago.  This is how accidents, road rage incidents, and other preventable driving mishaps occur.  If the speed limit is not 20 mph on State Street, there should be no signs indicating that it is 20 mph.  It's really quite simple: In a 30 mph zone there should only be 30 mph speed limit signs.  If there is no longer a school zone, there should not be any SCHOOL ZONE signs posted.

What you don't want are drivers ignoring signs of any kind, valid or not -- it's a really bad habit for drivers to be in.  We have enough drivers in Hudson ignoring signs and lights, we don't need any more.  Especially on the State Street Speedway.