Although speed limit signs are posted and perfectly visible throughout Pierce College’s roadways, the speed differs so much between streets that drivers can’t keep up or frequently just ignore them.
Students and faculty walking through the parking lots or across streets seem at times to be playing a human game of Frogger with the amount of oblivious drivers on campus, according to 21-year-old nursing student Devin Walker.
“Students just don’t seem to care,” said Walker.
The maximum speed limit in the parking lots is 8 mph, but with students often rushing to find parking and to be on time for class the limit is often broken, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Alfred Guerrero.
“The signs are posted everywhere, students just don’t always acknowledge them,” said Guerrero.
Although the 8 mph speed limit is the slowest on campus, the parking lots are one of the more busy areas, therefore are prone to more accidents, according to Guerrero.
“Safety wise the limits on campus make sense, but in reality no one is going to actually go that slow,” said Mandeera Wijetunga, a 20-year-old political science major.
According to Wijetunga, for someone like him that rides a motorcycle, it’s difficult to consistently stay at that slow of a speed.
“What are people doing speeding in parking lots for anyways?” said Walker. “It’s [speed limit] not too fast, not too slow; it’s perfect.”
Where the confusion begins for drivers is when they transition from El Rancho Drive, which is posted at 15 mph, and either continue on to Brahma Drive, Stadium Way or Olympic Drive, which is marked at 25 mph.
According to Guerrero, students and faculty aren’t the only drivers on campus causing the speeding issues.
“We get a lot of traffic from non-students cutting through the campus trying to avoid the main streets,” said Guerrero.
Certain students, such as 21-year-old transfer student Jeff Wohl, feel if the limits were more strictly regulated and people physically saw more speeders being pulled over, it wouldn’t be as big of an issue. People that speed on campus and ignore the limits enforced should end up needing a speeding ticket attorney just like anyone else would need if they were speeding down a highway for example.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone pulled over for speeding on campus,” said Wohl.
Most of the tickets given out during the semester are for parking violations, but there is usually a hand full of people a month written up for speeding, according to Guerrero.
“I’d like to walk through the parking lot without having to worry about someone texting behind the wheel or speeding,” said Wohl. “My goal is to make it to class alive.”
