Where RVA drivers speed most
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Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
When it comes to where Richmonders speed the most, beware main thoroughfares, according to police data.
Why it matters: That's also where locals are getting ticketed the most.
State of play: Of the more than 56,000 speeding citations issued by Richmond school zone cameras in the first six months of the year, 71% were at just four schools, per an Axios review of police data.
- All of those schools — River City Middle on Hull Street, Frances McClenney Elementary (Chamberlayne), Richmond High (Midlothian) and Huguenot High (Forest Hill) — are on some of the city's most high-traffic roads.
Zoom out: Complete data wasn't available for Chesterfield's school zone cameras, but thus far, Cosby High School on Fox Club Parkway, just off busy Hull Street Road, had the most citations, the Times-Dispatch reported.
- It accounted for around 29% of Chesterfield's 9,333 school zone citations in the first half of the year.
- Drivers going by nearby Grange Hall Elementary, actually on Hull Street, had the highest average speed over the limit, clocking around 51 mph — in a 35 mph zone, the RTD noted.
Caveat: Richmond and Chesterfield each have only 13 schools with cameras.
Meanwhile, Henrico, which doesn't have school zone cameras, still sees plenty of speed demons on its biggest roads, county spokesperson Ashley Branch tells Axios. The five Henrico speeding "hotspots" are:
- West Broad Street
- Laburnum Avenue
- Route 5
- Ridgefield Parkway
- John Rolfe Parkway
Those five roads, in their entirety, "are areas with consistent re-occurring traffic complaints, with frequent traffic enforcement by police based on those complaints," Branch says.
The bottom line: Speeding is never a good idea, but if you insist on doing it in RVA, you're likely going to get caught.