My question involves a traffic ticket from the state of: Texas
This school zone is on a westbound street of three through lanes and one left turn lane at the point where the signage is posted. While traveling in the far right lane at the posted speed of 35 MPH, my mother passed a school zone sign that does not have any indication of when it is in effect. The signage consists only of the S4-3 SCHOOL and the R2-1 SPEED LIMIT sign assembly with no flashing lights (Sign 1). There is no S4-1 Sign. Approximately one quarter mile down the road there is another sign for the school zone with the flashers, S4-3, R2-1 and S4-4 assemblage of signs (Sign 2). It is on the grass off to the right side of the road. My mom was in the process of slowing down from 35 to 20 in compliance with this sign, when she was directed to pull over by a police officer in a driveway approximately 30 yards west of the sign.
The officer wrote her a citation for exceeding the speed in the school zone as marked by Sign 1 and told her that there was a flashing signal at that point also. Upon returning to check, there is indeed a sign with the flashing beacons, S4-3, R2-1 and S4-4 assembly (Sign 3). This sign is placed in the center median at a point where the road is four lanes wide (including the previously mentioned left turn lane).
My question is: Does the absence of the times of enforcement indicator on Sign 1, and the fact that Sign 3 could easily be obscured by large trucks, buses, angle of the sun or the fact that it's in the median forty feet out of normal line of sight for a person driving in the right lane meet the definition outlined in the following section of the transportation code?
544.004 (b) A provision of this subtitle requiring an official traffic-control device may not be enforced against an alleged violator if at the time and place of the alleged violation the device is not in proper position and sufficiently legible to an ordinarily observant person.
Am I wrong in thinking that the one sign meeting the "sufficiently legible" requirement is in an improper position; and the sign that is in the proper position, while legible, does not indicate the exact message it is intended to convey?
Here's a picture of it from Google Earth (it was already dark by the time we got back to look at the signs so we couldn't get a good picture). Sign 1 is to the right, Sign 2 is nearly dead center way down the road and is circled in green, sign 3 is on the left.
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