Decatur meets with GDOT over high speeds on Scott Blvd.

Decatur officials recently met with Georgia Department of Transportation engineers to discuss potential remedies for Scott Boulevard’s high speeds. One trigger for the meeting was the April 25 accident on Scott where Lakeside High teacher Leah O’ Brien was killed by a car going over 100 mph.

Assistant City Manager David Junger also pointed out that a recent speed study concluded that 85 percent of Scott’s drivers go 49 mph or lower, with the stated speed limit 40 mph. City police records show in the last two years roughly 60 percent of all Decatur speeding tickets were issued on Scott. For these reasons Junger believes the city and GDOT can collaborate on changes.

“They really don’t want to lower the limit, which we would like,” he said. “But I think they’d be open to making physical changes, like narrowing the lanes, or maybe doing a series of medians in the middle. We want to make people less comfortable driving fast on Scott.”