It is a common practice among many jurisdictions, in Missouri as well as other states, to focus the time period of actively flashing beacons to when school child pedestrian activity is active and will have the greatest impact to driver awareness and compliance with the school speed limit, encouraging a safer roadway experience for all users. Constantly flashing school beacons throughout the day leads many motorists to ignore the school speed limit because 1) they believe school children to be at home until shortly before school start times or shortly after end times, or 2) they believe school children to be in school and not actively walking to/from school after school has started and before school is dismissed, and 3) they do not expect children to be walking to/from school all throughout the day.
Reducing school flashing beacon times from 9.5 hours daily to 1.75 hours daily will reduce the amount of power these devices consume, as well as, additional future maintenance required from over use. Targeted flashing operations will increase awareness to the most active time periods for when school child pedestrians are walking to and from school. This change will lead to an improved roadway experience, safety for all road user types, and will promote compliance with the school speed limit in each school zone.
While this change does target flexible start and end time periods for school flashers, typically all schools will utilize the flashing operations for only two time periods. This revision does allow flexibility for extended time periods or situational time periods as the school finds necessary to facilitate.