Motorists driving on North Sandy Creek Drive near Shadowood Golf Course should slow down as the area is now a school zone.
At the beginning of the year, Sandy Creek Christian Academy, formerly Seymour Christian Academy, completed its transition from Indianapolis Avenue in downtown Seymour to its new location at 5707 N. Sandy Creek Drive.
That move made it apparent to school officials and parents that something needed to be done to slow down traffic in the area because of the presence of more than 170 children.
Sandy Creek Christian Academy serves students in preschool through high school and also offers a daycare.
On Tuesday, Jackson County Commissioners gave approval to a request from Lorne Coffey to change the speed limit from 35 mph to 25 mph along the county’s stretch of the road and to put up new school zone and speed limit signs.
Coffey is on the school’s alumni board and has children who attend there.
“Going out there and picking up my children, it’s a place where people drive excessively over the speed limit,” he said.
“A lot of people aren’t aware that it’s a school zone now. I was just trying to see what we can do about getting some signs put up and the speed limit lowered to make people aware.”
Coffey said children play outside in front of the building which is near the road.
“It would take just one time for somebody to lose control or have an accident and come up through the yard of the school and possibly injure a child,” he said.
Commissioner Bob Gillaspy said the area gets a lot of traffic coming from those working in the Eastside Industrial Park, who use Sandy Creek Drive to get to Tipton Street.
The lowered speed limit will be from the railroad tracks around to the Fairfield Inn.
“We’ll have to draft an ordinance and then pass that ordinance,” said commissioners president Matt Reedy.
Coffey asked if that process would be done by the time school starts Aug. 16.
If the ordinance is passed at the August meeting, it will be 30 days after that before it takes effect and officers can enforce it, Reedy said.
Sheriff Mike Carothers said the signs could be put up earlier though to help deter speeding.