{"id":118625,"date":"2026-01-15T01:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T01:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/118625\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T01:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T01:27:08","slug":"florida-bill-requiring-safety-signals-at-crosswalks-in-school-zones-moves-forward-action-news-jax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/118625\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida bill requiring safety signals at crosswalks in school zones moves forward \u2013 Action News Jax"},"content":{"rendered":"

DUVAL COUNTY, Fla \u2014 Florida consistently ranks among the top five deadliest states<\/a> for pedestrians, and this year Florida lawmakers are looking at ways to combat that stigma. <\/p>\n

Pedestrian safety, especially for students, has been top of mind here in Duval recently.<\/p>\n

School Board Member Cindy Pearson (District 3) noted earlier this month the school district launched its new \u201cBe Safe Be Seen\u201d campaign to address a concerning trend of dangerous driving around stopped school buses.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year I think we had 42 or 43 students hit with three fatalities,\u201d Pearson said.<\/p>\n

>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n

For local parents like Katie Hathaway, it\u2019s a constant concern when sending her children off to school.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd getting kids to and from school safely every day is the bare minimum we should be doing,\u201d Hathaway said.<\/p>\n

Now, state lawmakers are considering a new bill that aims to improve safety at crosswalks.<\/p>\n

The bill would require any new crosswalks in school zones or on public roadways with speed limits of 35 miles-per-hour or higher to install one of four different safety crossing signals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They include flashing beacons, in-roadway warning lights, pedestrian hybrid beacons and rectangular rapid flashing beacons.<\/p>\n

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Pearson said she likes the goal, but would like to see the plan include a public safety campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is quite dangerous for our students when our drivers either don\u2019t recognize the signal, don\u2019t know how to interact with it or just ignore it,\u201d Pearson said.<\/p>\n

Hathaway also supports the base mission of pedestrian safety, but noted that, without any state funding attached, the bill would increase costs on local governments.<\/p>\n

\u201cFamilies need safer routes, but you cannot implement legislation like this without the funds to back it and this comes at a time when some in our state want to eliminate property taxes, which help fund projects like this,\u201d Hathaway said.<\/p>\n

The bill cleared its first committee stop in the House Wednesday morning, and concerns around a lack of flexibility and funding were raised. <\/p>\n

The bill sponsor indicated he\u2019s willing to make changes as the bill moves forward to address those concerns.<\/p>\n

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Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUVAL COUNTY, Fla \u2014 Florida consistently ranks among the top five deadliest states for pedestrians, and this year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[344,347,59623,59624,28,59625,348,116,351,118,117,50900,349,350,346,345],"class_list":["post-118625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action-news-jax","tag-cbs47","tag-crosswalks","tag-duval-crosswalks","tag-florida","tag-florida-crosswalks","tag-fox30","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-fl","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-new-bill","tag-northeast-florida","tag-southeast-georgia","tag-wfox","tag-wjax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}