School Zone Speeders and Report a Litterer

Nothing, and I do mean quite possibly nothing, irks me more than people who speed in school zones. It really makes my blood boil! Typically, the people I see speeding in school zones, are the ones who are either pulling into or out of the school parking lot with a car full of kids. Now that really chaps my hide, because you know if someone else caused an accident speeding that parent would be the first to sue the pants off of them.

Unrelated to that. Texas has a program in place as part of the Don't Mess With Texas campaign, where you can report a litterer. If you witness someone littering, even so much as a cigarette butt, you can anonymously report their license plate number and the state will send them a trash bag and a letter reminding them that littering is wrong. I love this! I am totally outing myself as a goodie-goodie here but I report every single litterer I see. 99% of them are cigarette butts. I'm sure smokers don't even think twice (or likely consider this as littering), but if you've ever been in a heat wave in Texas in August during a drought you know how dangerous a carelessly tossed lit cigarette butt can be: we have grass fires on the highway medians all the time in the summer here. Not to mention it's just plain freaking RUDE to throw your trash around. ARGH!

So here's my brilliant idea: why don't we come up with a way to anonymously report school zone speeders, just like the littering program? They could get a letter reminding them that children die in pedestrian accidents near schools every year. The school zones remind people to slow down (and get off the phone/stop texting) for a reason!!

The only drawback I can see to a school zone speeder reporting program, is that folks like me might be so busy trying to write down license plate numbers that we ourselves might be less careful in a school zone than we should be. Talk about shooting ourselves in the foot...

Still, I will remain eternally hacked off every time I drive through a school zone and see somebody whip past me with their carload of kids. I think steam is coming out of my ears just thinking about it...