Even though they’re all red, have eight sides and are placed at intersections nationwide, some Selma residents are having a hard time bringing themselves to stop their vehicles at numerous stop signs.

In a 30-minute period Saturday, the Times-Journal watched as 52 of 94 cars, roughly 55 percent, ran the stop sign on Hooper Drive, the road connecting Dallas Avenue and Old Cahaba Road.

Selma Chief of Police William T. Riley attributes much of the problem to the day-to-day rat race residents face at home, at the office and elsewhere.

“We’re busy, or we think we’re too busy to stop,” Riley said. “When we come to some intersections, you think, ‘You know what, if I can slow down just enough, I can see all the way down the tracks,’ or, ‘I can see all the way down the road, nobody’s coming,’ and zoom across. That is a bad habit to form.”

Not only is it a bad habit, Riley said, it’s illegal.

“[Drivers] get comfortable with it and that’s when bad things happen,” Riley said. “When you get so comfortable with it, you just flat out run it, and that’s not good. They have to be enforced. If they say stop, stop.”

Some of the more notoriously run stop signs, such as the one on Hooper Drive, are placed at railroad crossings and not intersections with other streets. Riley said regardless of the signs’ locations, the law is the law.

“They’re there because trains are going through town and people have to stop,” he said. “The city can’t put itself in a situation where they don’t have stop signs at the proper intersections for public safety.”

What’s admittedly most concerning for Riley at this time of year is the fact that all of the county’s school are letting out, which means children are more likely to be in the streets throughout the day.

“With the kids out of school, a lot of times they’re going to someone else’s house or the playground,” he said. “We don’t want to have a bad accident or someone running a stop sign or a light and then accidentally hitting a child because that would be a tragedy.”

Riley said running a stop sign or traffic light could be unintentional, as well.

“Sometimes they’ll be something that catches your attention and throws you off from looking at the road or seeing the sign and you roll through it,” he said. “That can happen to anybody.”

Sgt. Roy Nix, the city’s traffic division commander, said Selma would be cracking down on drivers that run through stop signs, as well as speeders and those without seatbelts and child restraints, during the “Click it or Ticket” campaign, which kicks off Monday.

“If it’s a stop sign, you have to stop,” Nix said. “The law doesn’t change.”

For Nix, Riley and the rest of the Selma Police Department, enforcing the law is important for the safety of everyone ranging from drivers to passengers to bystanders.

“The whole key is to help change drivers’ habits, to make them safer,” Riley said.