Knoxville’s traffic problems continue to mount, causing an estimated annual 8850 hours of productivity loss to Knoxville businesses due to employees arriving to the office late during the morning hours.
Under considerable pressure from small to mid-size businesses, the city of Knoxville has announced a change to the customary school Safety Zone configuration. This new Safety Zone system, codenamed “Natural Selection” will be tested in November/December of 2003 throughout the higher trafficked areas.
As outlined in a recent press release, the “Natural Selection” program is very simple, and will work as follows:
1. Students will be required to attend a 4-hour traffic safety session that will teach them NOT to step in front of vehicles.
2. Students failing the 4-hour course will be given an opportunity to attend the session a second time on the following day.
3. All school Safety Zones will be removed.
4. Any child that steps in front of a car and dies will be considered a loss to “Natural Selection.”
“Really, it makes perfect sense.” states Jorge Korda, spokesman for the City of Knoxville. “If, after being told twice that it’s a bad idea to step in front of moving vehicles, a child does so anyway…do we really want to keep them around? I know I don’t want someone like that growing up to run our country.”