By Staff
September 2, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
She just can’t wait to get to her classroom – she may not have learned to look both ways.
They are back in school.
Which means paying more attention to the way we drive and watching for the kids who are not as cautious as they should be.
The Halton Regional Police have begun their School Zones Should Be Safe Zones program.
The Halton Regional Police Service is out in force with their Project Safe Start.
This will be the 12th year the Service has conducted their homegrown campaign, which focuses on education, awareness and high-visibility enforcement of traffic laws throughout Halton Region, particularly in and around school zones.
Police officers with hand held radar devices catching drivers speeding right outside a high school.
This annual campaign is two weeks long and focuses on the period during which children are returning to school. This year’s campaign will run between Monday, August 26 and Friday, September 6, 2019.
School zones should be safe zones. Officers are reminding motorists that over 100,000 students return to school in Halton Region on Tuesday, September 3, 2019. Motorists should be on heightened alert for increased pedestrian and vehicular traffic in and around school zones.
It is important to remember driving safely is your priority:
• Drive at a safe speed. Aggressive driving such as speeding, tailgating and failing to comply with road signs increase the likelihood of a collision. Aggressive driving reduces your reaction time and makes your vehicle movements unpredictable to other drivers.
• Be aware of your surroundings when driving. There are three types of distractions: taking your eyes off the road, taking your hands off the wheel, and taking your mind off driving. Holding your cellular phone in your hands is an offence, regardless of whether you are talking on it, using the navigation system or changing a song. This is still applicable when stopped at a red light. Did you know that texting while driving increases the risk of a collision by 23 times?
• Drive responsibly. Drug-impaired driving and alcohol-impaired driving can result in serious injury or death to you, your loved ones and other road users. Impairment slows your ability to react to changing road conditions. Drinking before driving and any form of drug use will impact your ability to drive.
Halton residents have ranked traffic concerns as their #1 policing priority. Project Safe Start is just one of the campaigns that the Halton Regional Police Service engages in throughout the year in an effort to educate the public and enforce the Highway Traffic Act and other traffic-related legislation.
Sergeant Ryan Snow, Traffic Services Unit: “All motorists have a role to play in traffic safety, especially as children return to class this fall at one of the over 160 educational facilities across Halton Region. Project Safe Start aims to ensure that our youngest and most vulnerable road users remain safe. The Halton Regional Police Service would like to encourage motorists to slow down, drive sober and avoid using their cell phone and other devices at all times while driving. Regardless of who is at fault, when a vehicle collides with a pedestrian or cyclist, the consequences are usually tragic. All children deserve to attend school – safely.”
Pedestrians, cyclists, motorists and police all play an integral role in ensuring safer roads within Halton Region. We thank the community for doing their part to ensure school zones are a safe place to be.
Hard to argue with driving slowly and carefully in a school zone. But its not the only problem. I live near Tuck School on Spruce–speeders aren’t the problem, you couldn’t speed even if you wanted to! Numerous parked and stopped vehicles along Spruce are the problem–parents there to pick up their kids. The problem–and it’s serious, is that kids will sometimes appear between the illegally parked/stopped vehicles and despite driving slowly, I’ve had to make 3 panic stops in the past year. And what do the City/Police do about this safety hazard—NOTHING! Occasionally, the City sends down a parking bylaw officer who talks to the parents who move but the next day, the parents are back illegally parked. The City DOES NOTHING! What should happen is the officer issues a verbal warning and takes down the plate number–found there again, a ticket is issued. But the City does NOTHING! Is safety a concern?