Ben Cobbold measures speed of cars on Heath St. E.
A Moore Park student is finishing up a school project which is designed to tell us whether motorists are influenced by lawn signs asking them to slow for children playing. Ben Cobbold, 12, a Grade Seven student at Upper Canada College, brainstormed the idea with his family after his teacher announced the class would be participating in a school science fair. Ben had heard of the death of Georgia Walsh in Leaside last year and the enormously popular lawn sign program which followed. He wondered if drivers took notice of signs, and if they slowed. Thus was born a project with a before and after element — three days of testing speeds on Heath Street East before signs and three days with signs in place. Ben and his mom, Sunny Edmunds, obtained a number of yellow and black “Please Slow Down” signs made by the City from the office of Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam. Neighbors welcomed the signs. Keeping in mind streets and drivers are different, Ben says, “So far, what I’ve seen is that the signs work and are slowing cars down.” But Ben is being diligent. “For the next step of my project I am probably going to use the “slow down, kids at play signs” that you see in Leaside and see if they slow down traffic as effectively as my yellow signs do.”
This guy is so cool