Great Falls Street Safety Project
Table of Contents
- 👩👶👦 The Problem: Children at Risk on a State Road
- Our Mission: Data-Driven Advocacy for Child Safety
- 🚔 Speed Violations
- Take Action for Child Safety
- 🤖 How This Works
- Contact Us
The Problem: Children at Risk on a State Road
On my block alone, at least 8 children live on the wrong side of the street from their school. These kids must cross Great Falls Street daily to walk to school.
The problem is clear: there are no crosswalks. Children must cross unprotected pavement where cars regularly speed above the 35 mph limit. This creates a dangerous situation every school day.
The solution is blocked by bureaucracy. Great Falls Street in McLean, VA is a state-maintained road. This means the county cannot install crosswalks.
Only the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has the authority to add safety measures. VDOT has refused to act, making two claims. First, they say the existing accessible ramps at Great Falls and Moly are "pointing the wrong way" for a crosswalk. Installing one would require redoing the sidewalk cuts. Second, they claim the vertical curve in the road makes a crosswalk ineffective. Rather than address these issues, VDOT prefers to leave everyone at risk.
Our Mission: Data-Driven Advocacy for Child Safety
This automated speed monitoring system was created to document the dangerous conditions our children face every day. By collecting evidence of speeding violations, we aim to:
- Demonstrate the urgent need for a crosswalk with empirical speed data
- Provide VDOT with documented evidence to support a crosswalk installation request
- Raise community awareness about the safety risks to children
- Advocate for state action to protect vulnerable pedestrians
Every vehicle documented here represents a potential tragedy that could be prevented with proper pedestrian infrastructure.
Speed Violations Documentation
36 vehicles have been documented exceeding 40.0 mph in our monitoring area.
The speed limit on Great Falls Street is 35 mph. Each violation below occurred in an area where children regularly cross.
| Rank | Max Speed | Vehicle | Timestamp | Evidence Photo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 60.0 mph | Red unknown unknown | 08/27/25 09:17:01 AM |  |
| 2 | 44.0 mph | White Cadillac Eldorado Convertible | 08/27/25 09:20:18 AM |  |
| 3 | 43.0 mph | White Chevrolet Trailblazer | 08/27/25 09:33:01 AM |  |
| 4 | 43.0 mph | Black Toyota Tundra | 08/27/25 09:16:05 AM |  |
| 5 | 43.0 mph | Red Mazda Mazda 3 | 06/28/25 03:36:33 PM |  |
| 6 | 43.0 mph | White Ford Expedition | 06/28/25 03:33:36 PM |  |
| 7 | 42.0 mph | Black Ford Explorer | 08/27/25 09:38:34 AM |  |
| 8 | 42.0 mph | Unknown Unknown Unknown | 08/27/25 09:15:12 AM |  |
| 9 | 42.0 mph | White Cadillac Escalade | 08/27/25 09:05:11 AM |  |
| 10 | 42.0 mph | Silver unreadable unreadable | 08/27/25 08:35:55 AM |  |
| 11 | 42.0 mph | Silver Ford Explorer | 06/28/25 04:30:19 PM |  |
| 12 | 42.0 mph | Black Lexus LC 500 | 06/28/25 04:26:22 PM |  |
| 13 | 42.0 mph | Gray Toyota Camry | 06/28/25 03:53:17 PM |  |
| 14 | 42.0 mph | Silver Toyota RAV4 | 06/28/25 03:32:40 PM |  |
| 15 | 41.0 mph | Gray Kia Sorento | 08/27/25 09:28:46 AM |  |
| 16 | 41.0 mph | Black Ford Flex | 08/27/25 09:03:23 AM |  |
| 17 | 41.0 mph | Black Ford Fusion | 08/27/25 08:43:41 AM |  |
| 18 | 41.0 mph | White Estimated to be Ford Estimated to be F-150 | 08/27/25 08:26:47 AM |  |
| 19 | 41.0 mph | Black Unknown Unknown | 06/28/25 04:15:54 PM |  |
| 20 | 41.0 mph | Black Honda CR-V | 06/28/25 04:13:38 PM |  |
| 21 | 41.0 mph | Black Chevrolet Trailblazer | 06/28/25 03:39:32 PM |  |
| 22 | 41.0 mph | Blue Nissan Altima | 06/28/25 03:29:55 PM |  |
| 23 | 40.0 mph | Black Honda Accord | 08/27/25 09:34:40 AM |  |
| 24 | 40.0 mph | Red Mazda MX-5 | 08/27/25 09:11:28 AM |  |
| 25 | 40.0 mph | Silver Ford Fusion | 08/27/25 08:56:41 AM |  |
| 26 | 40.0 mph | White Ford Mustang | 08/27/25 08:51:49 AM |  |
| 27 | 40.0 mph | Unknown Unknown Unknown | 08/27/25 08:47:57 AM |  |
| 28 | 40.0 mph | Gray Ford Explorer | 08/27/25 08:36:34 AM |  |
| 29 | 40.0 mph | White Ford Taurus | 08/27/25 08:32:38 AM |  |
| 30 | 40.0 mph | White Ford Explorer | 08/27/25 08:29:03 AM |  |
| 31 | 40.0 mph | White Tesla Model 3 or Model Y | 06/28/25 04:08:55 PM |  |
| 32 | 40.0 mph | Silver Mazda CX-30 | 06/28/25 03:43:05 PM |  |
| 33 | 40.0 mph | Red Ford Police Interceptor Utility (based on the Ford Explorer) | 06/28/25 03:42:45 PM |  |
| 34 | 40.0 mph | Silver Toyota Corolla | 06/28/25 03:41:41 PM |  |
| 35 | 40.0 mph | Red Estimated to be Toyota Estimated to be Corolla | 06/28/25 03:36:58 PM |  |
| 36 | 40.0 mph | Black Nissan Altima | 06/28/25 03:25:18 PM |  |
Take Action for Child Safety
This data demonstrates the urgent need for a crosswalk on Great Falls Street.
Contact VDOT - Request a Crosswalk Today
Virginia Department of Transportation has the authority to install crosswalks on state roads. Here's exactly how to help:
- Go to the VDOT portal: https://my.vdot.virginia.gov/
- Request a crosswalk at the intersection of Great Falls St and Moly Dr in McLean, VA
- Reference this website (GreatFallsSpeeders.com) and the documented speed violations as evidence
- Mention the 8+ children who need to cross daily for school
Contact Your Representatives
Local and state representatives can advocate for traffic safety improvements:
- Virginia State Delegate: Rip Sullivan - Contact via Virginia General Assembly
- Virginia State Senator: Jennifer Boysko - Contact via VA Senate
- Share this evidence with school district officials
Community Action
- Share GreatFallsSpeeders.com to raise awareness
- Attend local government meetings to speak about this issue
- Connect with other parents who have similar concerns
How This Works
This automated vehicle speed detection system combines radar sensors and cameras to monitor and document traffic violations in real-time. Here's how the complete system operates:
Detection and Measurement
- OPS-241 Doppler Radar Sensor: Continuously monitors for vehicles and provides accurate speed measurements. The system corrects for cosine angle effects, achieving accuracy within +/- 1mph of vehicle speedometers.
- Unique Vehicle Detection: Algorithms identify individual vehicles to prevent duplicate recordings of the same car
- Speed Analysis: For each detected vehicle, the system calculates minimum, maximum, and average speeds during the detection window
Image Capture and Storage
- Automated Camera System: When a vehicle exceeds the speed threshold, the system automatically captures images
- Database Storage: All detection events are stored in a SQLite database with timestamps, speed statistics, and image references
AI-Powered Vehicle Identification
- Multi-Modal AI Analysis: A large visual language model (VLM) analyzes captured images to automatically identify vehicle make, model, and color. While generally reliable, accuracy depends on image quality and may be reduced if the camera response was delayed, the vehicle was partially obscured, or multiple vehicles appeared in the frame. This AI analysis occurs asynchronously due to computational requirements and does not affect the recorded speed measurements or timestamps.
Public Website
- Automated Documentation: When Internet access is available, the system generates comprehensive documentation showing all violations with vehicle details, speeds, and photographic evidence
- Cloudflare Pages Deployment: Data is automatically formatted and deployed to this public website via Cloudflare Pages, creating a record of all documented violations that others can access. By hosting the public website on separate infrastructure, traffic to the website does not affect the capture or archival processes.
Automation: All speed measurements, image capture, vehicle identification, and website publication occur automatically with no human intervention, ensuring objective, unbiased documentation of traffic violations.
Contact Us
If you have any questions or wish to request your car's image be blurred out, please email [email protected]