BILL REQ. #:  S-0420.3 

Read first time 01/20/2003.   Referred to Committee on Highways & Transportation.

     AN ACT Relating to school or playground speed zones; and amending RCW 46.61.440.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

Sec. 1   RCW 46.61.440 and 1997 c 80 s 2 are each amended to read as follows:
     (1) Subject to RCW 46.61.400(1), and except in those instances where a lower maximum lawful speed is provided by this chapter or otherwise, it shall be unlawful for the operator of any vehicle to operate the same at a speed in excess of twenty miles per hour when operating any vehicle upon a highway either inside or outside an incorporated city or town when passing any ((marked)) school or playground ((crosswalk when such marked crosswalk)) speed zone when the beginning and end of the zone is fully posted with standard school speed limit signs or standard playground speed limit signs. ((The speed zone at the crosswalk shall)) A school or playground speed zone extends three hundred feet in either direction from ((the)) a marked school or playground crosswalk, or three hundred feet from the school or playground property line, whichever is encountered first as traffic approaches the school. When no marked crosswalk exists, a school or playground speed zone extends three hundred feet from the school or playground property line.
     (2) A person found to have committed any infraction relating to speed restrictions within a school or playground speed zone shall be assessed a monetary penalty equal to twice the penalty assessed under RCW 46.63.110. This penalty may not be waived, reduced, or suspended.
     (3) The school zone safety account is created in the custody of the state treasurer. Fifty percent of the moneys collected under subsection (2) of this section shall be deposited into the account. Expenditures from the account may be used only by the Washington traffic safety commission solely to fund projects in local communities to improve school zone safety, pupil transportation safety, and student safety in school bus loading and unloading areas. Only the director of the traffic safety commission or the director's designee may authorize expenditures from the account. The account is subject to allotment procedures under chapter 43.88 RCW, but no appropriation is required for expenditures until July 1, 1999, after which date moneys in the account may be spent only after appropriation.