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EditorPS
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Posted: Mar 20th, 2007 03:43 pm |
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ORMA Booster wrote: Thank you, everyone, for showing your concern for this topic ...
Excellent post above, ORMA Booster, and thanks for joining us. Also, many thanks for making such good, constructive use of our forum -- open minds and ears from people on all sides of the road are at the foundation of solving these sorts of problems.
Hope you won't be a stranger to us on this forum!
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ORMA Booster
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Posted: Mar 21st, 2007 12:43 am |
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Thanks for the nice welcome- I appreciate all of the friendly comments. I just wanted to say that ORMA's current administration really values our being good members of the community, and is working to restore ORMA's physical appearance and reputation. We have a lot of positive things going on- you may have noticed we renovated our main building, Alumni Hall, thanks to some generous contributions. We are slowly working on other areas of campus, and the crosswalk is one area that could definitely stand improvement. So, please keep the lines of communication open, and if anyone has concerns, we would prefer to hear about it so we can do something. As far as teaching the cadets common sense, believe me, we do our best! 
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S. Smith
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Posted: Mar 21st, 2007 07:09 pm |
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ORMA Booster wrote:
Also, we do have students crossing the road at all hours of the day and night. They need to take their laundry to the quartermaster about 9:30 pm after evening study hall, and they often have away games and other events where they get back to campus well after dark. We need to extend the hours of our "school zone" time. We should probably make it from 5 or 6:00 am until 10 or 11:00 at night.
ORMAB, This brings up a question. I don't know how long you've been affiliated with the school, but sometime in the last few years the hours on the school zone signs were changed. For years they said a later time -- I'm thinking it was more like 9 p.m.
How and why was this changed? Could the academy and/or the town ask the DOT to change it back or even make it later, as you've suggested?
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WB
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Posted: Mar 29th, 2007 12:02 am |
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I like to think of myself as a safe and experienced driver. With close to 40 years of driving experience I have never had an accident, and I have never had a violation. No tickets for anything.
That being said, I did not know that the ORMA crosswalks gave the right-of-way to pedestrians. I thought the crosswalks were merely precautionary to motorists that pedestrians might be around, but I didn't know that I had to yield. I've cruised through that area many times without a clue that I had to yield there. I thought that the diamond-shaped sign conveyed a warning message, not a transference in right of way.
Perhaps another sign might help clarify to cars that they have to yield. I think that if I didn't know, then probably there are many others that also don't know they have to yield there. Bottom line, students can't assume that cars will stop for them even if they are in the crosswalk.
As an aside, I also have a diesel locomotive engineer's license. I can't tell you how many times I've seen cars and trucks cross tracks right in front of a train even though the train has the right of way, and is exponentially larger than even the largest truck.
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S. Smith
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Posted: Mar 29th, 2007 12:27 am |
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WB wrote:
That being said, I did not know that the ORMA crosswalks gave the right-of-way to pedestrians. I thought the crosswalks were merely precautionary to motorists that pedestrians might be around, but I didn't know that I had to yield. I've cruised through that area many times without a clue that I had to yield there. I thought that the diamond-shaped sign conveyed a warning message, not a transference in right of way.
Thanks, WB. I thought I was the only one who must have been sleeping when the teacher went over this in driver's ed.
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ORMA Booster
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Posted: Mar 29th, 2007 01:31 am |
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The January 19th NWO contained a letter from another ORMA teacher with the actual highway code. I don't have a paper copy of it, and since I'm new to the forum, I'm not sure if old NWO issues are archived online. But the teacher referred to several statutes indicating pedestrian right of way in a crosswalk. Obviously, I am a fellow teacher, not a lawyer, or (worse yet) a politician, so I am not 100% sure of the exact wording of the law, but it was pretty clear that pedestrians do have the right of way. ORMA is a little different from most school crosswalks, in that our property extends on both sides of the road, so technically, cars are driving on a public road through "our" property. As I stated in an earlier post, this has to do with the age of the school, and I doubt the state would ever reroute 150 to bypass the Academy. However, aside from the issue of right of way, drivers still need to obey the posted 25 mph zone, and pedestrians need to be more cautious.
I did pass on a summary of everyones' suggestions to the Academy administration, including the idea of changing the school zone times, and they stated that they are looking into the entire crosswalk safety situation. When there are any updates or changes, I will post them here. Thank you again for your help and comments, and please spread the word to drive safely.
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TCat
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Posted: Apr 22nd, 2007 08:10 pm |
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This thread has died down for a while but I wanted to see if I could bring it back up. More and more I am seeing 150 become dangerous from speeding (of course) and erratic nasty drivers. I would love to see some police presence on this road every once and a while. I'm sure they could clean up.
With the 1 mile area between 68 and Bunch road being home to a major interesction, a school, a daycare (at the Methodist church), kids being dropped off and picked up for school and the almost blind turn, you would think the 35 mile an hour limit would be followed or more enforced.
Anything we can do to bring more attention to the dangerous nature of this road and need to have speed limits enforced?
Last edited on Apr 22nd, 2007 08:11 pm by TCat
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WHE
Member
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Posted: Apr 29th, 2007 11:01 am |
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Maybe this will help...
§ 20-155. Right-of-way.
(c) The driver of any vehicle upon a highway within a business or residence district shall yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian crossing such highway within any clearly marked crosswalk, or any regular pedestrian crossing included in the prolongation of the lateral boundary lines of the adjacent sidewalk at the end of a block, except at intersections where the movement of traffic is being regulated by traffic officers or traffic direction devices.
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Stonefree
Member
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Posted: May 1st, 2007 12:29 pm |
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WHE -- Thanks for the information, although the letter of the law hasn't been the issue on this problem and that is what i felt was missed by the ORMA official.
We all know that pedestrians have the right of way, and regardless of where they cross, vehicles should yeild and always be cautious. But the bigger problem is while most drivers try to help this situation none of the students/instructors that I see ever seem to make an effort to be safe.
I had hoped ,with this forum and the notes in the paper about this problem, that it would get better, but i see the same disregard for safety of both themselves and motorists from the students/staff.
My next step, I think, is to load up my video camera and throw it up on my dash when i run to the store, etc. Just turn it on in my driveway and go. That way i am not making the situation more dangerous by holding a camera but i can still document this situation so that people don't think i am taking crazy pills.
Stonefree
Last edited on May 1st, 2007 12:32 pm by Stonefree
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macca
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Posted: May 5th, 2007 06:14 pm |
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Just had to log on to say I was driving past ORMA on Thursday afternoon, May 3, about 5:30 I guess (rainy, so not real light) and two cadets crossed 150 BETWEEN the two crosswalks.... 
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A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. Herm Albright
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ORMA Booster
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Posted: May 10th, 2007 09:31 pm |
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Unforunately, I don't think there is any way to force every cadet and ORMA employee to use common sense when crossing the street. I would just be happy if the community would at least drive the posted speed limit. I can't understand how people think it's OK to drive so fast through a school zone. Some of these soccer moms, NWHS students and construction workers could give Dale Jr. a close race.
Stonefree, if you want to get the video camera, go for it. I'll get a radar gun to clock the speeders, and between the two of us, maybe we can get both the pedestrians and the drivers to exercise caution.
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macca
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Posted: May 10th, 2007 10:21 pm |
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ORMA Booster wrote:
Unforunately, I don't think there is any way to force every cadet and ORMA employee to use common sense when crossing the street. I would just be happy if the community would at least drive the posted speed limit. I can't understand how people think it's OK to drive so fast through a school zone. Some of these soccer moms, NWHS students and construction workers could give Dale Jr. a close race.
Stonefree, if you want to get the video camera, go for it. I'll get a radar gun to clock the speeders, and between the two of us, maybe we can get both the pedestrians and the drivers to exercise caution.
This may have been addressed before, but is there any way that the signs posting the speed limit/school hours could be more prominent? Most folks are not used to school zones/times being in place for most of the day. I'm not trying to make excuses, I'm just saying we have a lot of people moving here, just passing thru, etc.
Of course, if we could get the Sheriff's department to sit there with their sign posting your speed, that might help. Or better yet, have them posted there writing tickets...... (BTW: I think the Town can request that those tracking signs be brought to their town....)
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A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. Herm Albright
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ORMA Booster
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Posted: Jun 26th, 2007 04:14 pm |
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| Just wanted to remind everyone that ORMA summer school and summer camps are in session, so please drive safely. Students will continue to cross Highway 150 day and night throughout the summer, so don't let your caution go on vacation!
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rasin
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Posted: Jun 26th, 2007 07:08 pm |
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I always slow down even when the blinker isn't flashing.
My main annoyance is with the staff, they seem to be the major offenders of not using the cross walks and even not looking.
A few weeks ago what looked to be two staff member were carrying something together and they just walked right out into the road in-between the two crosswalks. They were walking at an angle so they could see traffic to the one direction but they didn’t look the other way until they were at the middle of the road. I had just enough space to slow down to allow them safe passage and that was going slower than the speed limit at the time. If I was going the speed limit it would have been a bit close.
The students need to see that the rules apply to all and the staff would be helping a great deal if they set a good example.
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