CAA wants improved signage for school zones
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/04/2015 (4047 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
CAA Manitoba is calling for better school-zone signage so drivers are made more aware they are required to slow down.
Provincial legislation passed in 2014 allows municipalities to set lower speed limits in school zones. However, each municipality can set which days, months and times of day the limits must be followed.
CAA argues that can create some confusion among motorists and believes most drivers ticketed for speeding in school zones aren’t even aware they were in a school zone.
“We want to make it fairer for motorists,” CAA Manitoba president and CEO Mike Mager said in a release Tuesday. “Even adding flashing amber lights to the signs could make them more prominent, meaning more people slowing down, and in turn, ensuring the safety of our kids.”
In Brandon, the 30 km/h speed limits in school zones are in force from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday from September to June.
All local school zones have three signs — a yellow warning sign, a 30 km/h speed zone sign and a sign indicating where the school zone has ended.
Brandon Police Service Sgt. Dallas Lockhart said since reduced school zone speed limits were implemented on Sept. 2, 2014, approximately 76 speeding tickets and 45 warnings have been issued.
“We get people saying they forgot they were going through a school zone, didn’t see the signage to every other excuse we hear for speeding,” he said, adding most of the tickets have been handed out near J. R. Reid School on 26th Street.
Mager suggests revenues collected by speeders in school zones should go back to the school’s road safety initiatives, or to help pay for sign improvements.
In Ontario and Quebec, flashing lights in many municipalities are added just before the start of a school zone to alert drivers there is a reduced speed zone ahead.
Other measures could include painted curbs or “Safety Sams,” which are plastic signs placed on the street in a school zone with a reduced speed limit.
“If you are going over the reduced speed limit in school zones, you are putting children at risk,” Mager said. “At the same time, we want to be fair to motorists. That’s what it’s about.”
» lenns@brandonsun.com
» Twitter: @LindseyEnns