You are driving through a school zone during arrival time with children walking nearby. What does the law require of you?

Why B is correct

School zones carry a reduced posted limit that applies when children are present or during the hours printed on the sign, and the governing idea is that the limit is a ceiling rather than a target. Children behave unlike adult pedestrians: they step off the kerb without looking, they travel in chattering groups, and they are short enough to vanish behind a parked SUV. A crossing guard directs traffic with legal authority, so the guard's signal outranks both the posted number and the traffic light. Speed genuinely matters rather than symbolically here, because braking distance grows much faster than the speedometer suggests. Cutting ten miles per hour inside a twenty-five zone meaningfully shortens the range at which a child survives being hit.

Why the other options are wrong

A. Keep the normal limit because no child is actually crossing yet

Waiting until someone is crossing misunderstands the entire purpose of the reduced limit. By the time a child is in your path there is no time left for the lower speed to help; the zone exists to give you margin before that moment arrives.

C. Sound the horn so children move out of the way

A horn startles rather than directs, and children frequently move toward the sound instead of away from it. Nothing in the rules converts a warning blast into a licence to maintain your speed.

D. Stop completely until the area has cleared

Coming to a full stop is not the requirement and creates its own hazard. Stopping mid-lane invites rear-end collisions and blocks the view of drivers behind you; the obligation is to proceed slowly and alertly, not to halt.

On the road

Twenty minutes before the first bell, a kerb is crowded with children waiting for the guard's hand. One of them lets go of a backpack strap and dashes across between two parked cars. At twenty-five this is a scare with a hard stop; at forty it is the sort of call nobody at the scene forgets.

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