Don't zone out during your daily commute, Fulton Police Chief Steve Myers warned.
Starting soon, several yield signs at cross streets along Court Street will become stop signs. Fulton City Council members authorized the swap at their Dec. 17 meeting.
"People have been blowing through there for years," Fulton Mayor Lowe Cannell said.
The yield signs that may be replaced include those at Court Street's intersections with St. Louis Avenue, East and West Seventh streets, and East and West Eighth streets.
Ward 2 councilmember Jeff Stone said he suspects the switch at Eighth Street, the most heavily trafficked of the three, will give drivers the most trouble.
"That's been a yield sign for decades," he said. "We may want to do some extra signage."
Myers said his officers will provide extra enforcement along Court Street while drivers adjust to the change.
"We usually give them three to six months to get used to it," he said.
During that grace period, drivers will receive verbal warnings rather than tickets. As generous as three to six months may sound, it's not always enough, he added.
"We switched that one intersection on 14th Street from a two-way stop to a four-way stop, and people ran it for a year," Myers said. "We'd stop them and say, 'Hey, you just ran a stop sign,' and they just wouldn't have seen it."
The suggestion to switch the signs came from Wendy Kennedy, a Court Street resident, during the Oct. 24 Fulton Traffic Commission meeting. She expressed concerns about vehicles driving too quickly along Court Street, especially given the demographics of those living along the street. Having yield signs rather than stop signs at intersections along the street adds to the risk of accidents, she said.
The city's traffic commission is working to address speeding problems along Court Street, having installed a radar speed on the street in October. Currently, the sign is in non-display mode and is merely collecting data.
Interim City Engineer Kyle Bruemmer said traffic engineers determine what speed is safe and reasonable by studying drivers' actual speeds. The speed limit gets set at around the speed at which 85 percent of drivers travel.
During the October meeting, Myers moved that any speed limit change proposals wait until after the speed study is complete.