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Tampa school surrounded by most careless and dangerous drivers in county, report says

ZenDrive ranks dangerous drivers around schools
Posted at 6:14 PM, Nov 27, 2018
and last updated 2018-11-28 05:28:39-05

TAMPA, Fla. — One Tampa mom says parents walking their kids to MacFarlane Park Elementary School have 12 seconds to make it across a crosswalk before and after school.

"It's a fast street. The speed limit-- people are going 40, 45,” said parent Elaine McGinnis.

The MacDill Avenue dash happens twice a day.

"You park at the park, that's one option and the kids, they're running up to press the button,” said McGinnis who walks her 6-year-old to class.

"These are elementary age children. Parents are with them. Everybody's doing what they can,” she said.

Even so, not all drivers are stopping for kids and parents.

"It's really hard to get traffic to stop, even with our crosswalk. You know cars just run right by it. Even though the light above it is red,” said teacher Wanda Vinson.

Neither this teacher nor this mom is surprised MacFarlane Park Elementary ranks #244 on a new list. In fact, the school ranks very last on a list of Hillsborough County schools surrounded by the most careless and dangerous drivers.

"It just seems crazy that they're not more attentive to what's going on around them,” said Vinson speaking of drivers.

Zen Drive, a California company, collects info on speeders who are distracted, aggressive or make sudden starts or stops using anonymous data they get from various phone apps.

The company is awarding $50,000 for safety improvements to one school and is asking for video applications.

"Through the Fund My Streets campaign, anybody can go and look up their school and they can figure out what the riskiest behaviors are and then put in a proposal to take action,” said Noah Budnick from ZenDrive.com. You can also search schools in Pinellas County. 

The contest is called #FundMyStreets and is taking applications until December 10.