Signs around public schools often read “Speed Limit 20 mph when children are present.” Does this mean when children are present inside the school? Or when children are present outside the school?

If we could travel back in time 110 years, the answer to this question would be yes to both situations, and when they’re not present at all. Washington’s first school zone law established a speed limit of 12 mph “within one hundred yards of any school house, on school days between eight o’clock in the morning and six o’clock in the afternoon.” There’s no mention about children being present, so the speed limit was in effect even if all the kids left the campus by three pm. Interesting side note: it wasn’t until two years later that they made a law requiring the posting of school zone signs.

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