Police May Ticket Drivers Who Leave Cars at Central and Middle Schools

Haddonfield police are considering new procedures to relieve traffic and improve safety in front of the Central and Middle schools when classes are in session.

Police and borough officials said illegal parking and stopping across the street from the schools on Lincoln Avenue and parents who leave their cars while dropping off or waiting for children in front of the schools, may be ticketed. Police may use a handheld camera to photograph license plates of vehicles parked illegally, Chief John Banning said during a commissioners meeting last week. The chief said photographing the licenses will allow violators to be cited without tying up traffic while a ticket is being written. 

Commissioner Ed Borden, the borough director of public safety, said the goal is to improve safety during drop-off and pickup.

“In mornings, there are kids walking across the street in the middle of the block,” Borden said. “There are people trying to get by while kids are trying to get to school. It’s very dangerous.”

Borden said he and Banning were planning to speak with school officials next week about how to handle traffic and child safety.  He said any new traffic-enforcement measures will not be rolled out at the beginning of school next month, but will likely be implemented early in the school year.

School board President Steve Weinstein said traffic safety is also a school-district priority.

“Everybody’s in this together,” Weinstein said Friday.  We will discuss it with the appropriate people and it’ll get worked out as it always gets worked out.”

Maureen Eyles, who has a child in the second and fourth grades at the Central School,  said she can see both sides of the issue: the need for traffic safety and the need for parents to safely see their kids enter school.

“We’re one of the only schools that don’t have a parking plan or an area with parking space near the school,” Eyles said Friday. “Parents don’t abandon their cars. They stand next to vehicles on the school side of the car. Many have babies or little ones in the car and want to keep an eye out for their child, and have to make eye contact with a teacher for the child to be released. But I absolutely see the issue from both sides.”

Eyles said there is a parking lot behind the school with spaces reserved for borough-government use.  If those spaces can be made available, it could help ease traffic in front of the school, she said.

“Everybody wants to keep the kids safe," she said. "That’s the ideal intention with this. The parents want to keep the kids safe. That’s why we drive them to school. The police don’t want to have traffic issues, but issuing tickets could be a distraction from the goal.”