Opinion: The simple change to make school zones safer and easier to navigate

I teach human factors in road systems, and the very first principle I introduce in my classes is the cornerstone of human-centred design: design the system around the cognitive and attentional limitations of the people who have to use it.

You can have all the right procedures, rules and engineering in place. But if the system isn't intuitive enough for the end user, it's still prone to failure for one simple reason: human error.

Any system that relies on human end users needs to account for how people actually think and behave. Our roads should be no different.

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When it comes to road safety, there are few things less controversial than protecting children around schools. I think we can all agree on that. That's exactly why we have reduced speed limits in school zones.

And for good reason. The evidence is clear. Research has established that reducing speed limits around schools from 50 to 30km/h can cut injury crashes by around 45 per cent. In Australia, our school zone limit is generally 40km/h, so we're already capturing part of that safety benefit.

But this is also one area where our road system design is glaringly at odds with the very human-centred design principle I started with.

Take a look at a typical school zone sign:

That's a lot of information for a driver to process in a few seconds.

Now you might be thinking, "Come on, how hard is that?".

Fair question. But unlike many opinion pieces, this isn't based on a personal gripe or because I happened to receive a speeding fine one morning.

My job as a researcher is to think about the broader driver population, not just my own experience. And both research and plenty of anecdotal evidence suggest that many motorists find school zone rules confusing.

Thanks to research commissioned by AAMI, we know a little more about the problem. More than one in four Australian drivers say they do not fully understand school zone speed limits and operating times. One in four also admit they have driven through a school zone too fast simply because they didn't notice the signs.

This isn't just a matter of perception and self-stated violation. A recent Australian study of school zones around 59 schools in Canberra found that 36 per cent of vehicles exceeded the 40km/h limit while the school zone was active.

And of course this isn't just a Canberra thing. Research done in NSW has also found even more non-compliance and that drivers were most likely to exceed the speed limit as they entered a school zone compared to when exiting.

That is exactly the point. By the time many drivers realise the lower limit applies, they're often well into the zone.

And honestly, it's not hard to see why. To know whether that 40km/h limit applies, drivers are often expected to know the time, remember whether it's a school day, and keep track of school holidays. That strikes me as asking drivers to do more thinking than good road design should require.

Not everyone has children and follows the school calendar. Not every driver travels the same route every day. Not everyone is driving at the same time each morning.

We also share our roads with international visitors who may have little idea how our school zone signs work.

By the time some drivers have read the sign, worked out the time and figured out whether the restriction is actually in force, they're already well into the school zone.

And let's be realistic. Drivers get distracted and minds wander. That's simply part of being human. Good road design should anticipate this.

So, can we do better than asking motorists to perform this little mental calculation while they're driving?

I think we can. The solution is literally in sight: dynamic flashing school zone signs.

Replace the old static signs with electronic flashing signs that clearly show when the lower speed limit is active. Just a flashing number and no extra information to read and digest.

This gives drivers clarity and one less thing to think about and lets them keep their attention where it belongs.

And yes, there is good evidence that they do a better job of capturing drivers' attention and improving compliance.

School zone speed limits shouldn't depend on drivers tracking school hours and holidays. Flashing school-zone signs are a cost-effective piece of infrastructure that make roads safer for children and driving easier for motorists. Some schools already have them. Every school should.