By Shaun Penner

School Zones

Traffic tickets during first week of school down from 2018

Sep 11, 2019 | 3:17 PM

A total of 353 tickets were handed out in school zones during the first week of classes, between September 3rd and 6th, here in Grande Prairie.

Though that remains a high number, it is an improvement on 2018 stats, says Ross Gear with Enforcement Services.

“It was a decrease from last year, which certainly is encouraging,” said Gear. “It means we’re heading in the right direction.”

Stats from last year show that 162 tickets were handed out on just the first two days of school in 2018 (September 4 and 5). In 2017, a total of 876 fines were levied in school zones between September 5 and 15.

Though the stats are trending in the right direction, Gear says that he would like to see that number get much smaller in the future.

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“We have a long way to go, I’d say. I mean, we really want to decrease these numbers,” said Gear. “Especially in school zones. This directly relates to our children’s safety.”

“Ideally, I know it’s not realistic, but we want to get it down to next to nothing.”

One of the tools that might play a bigger role than most in reducing infractions in school zones is photo radar. Of the 353 tickets issued last week, 310 (88%) of those were from automated traffic enforcement cameras.

Gear says that photo radar is one of the greatest assets they have in trying to control speed around town.

“And I know that there is a lot of people out there that do not like automated traffic enforcement, for a variety of reasons,” said Gear. “One of the greatest causation factors for collisions is speed. If we can drop the speeds in a school zone, to me that’s directly related to safety.”

“Speed really affects stopping distance and reaction time, and young people are unpredictable.”

A reminder that the speed limit is 30 km/h in school zones between 7:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. on all school days.