School zone safety under attack from selfish drivers despite lights

SPEEDING motorists continue to put children at risk despite flashing lights outside every school, The Saturday Telegraph can reveal.

Shirin Town watches traffic with sons Gabe (left) and Dash after picking the boys up from their school Dulwich Hill Public.

SPEEDING motorists continue to put children at risk despite flashing lights outside every school, The Saturday Telegraph can reveal.

Almost 80,000 drivers have been caught hurtling through 40km/h school zones so far this year compared with 72,301 over the same time in 2014 — the year before the warning lights were installed.

Pedestrian Council of Australia chairman Harold Scruby yesterday called for mobile speed cameras to be secretly rotated around school zones to slow motorists down.

“Those figures are disgraceful,” said Mr Scruby, whose lobbying secured the first fixed speed camera outside a school in 1998.

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“Those who are caught would only be 1 per cent of drivers who still speed through a school zone. People never learn.”

A relative handful of school zones have fixed speed cameras and Mr Scruby­ said the cost of fitting them at all schools would be prohibitive, adding mobile speed cameras should not be signposted as they are now.

“Mobile speed cameras are most effective, especially if they are covert,” Mr Scruby said.

State government figures show in the first three school terms of this year, 79,741 motorists were fined a total of $23,336,587 for speeding in school zones.

In 2014, 72,301 drivers were fined $18,528,667, in 2015 81,524 drivers were fined $21,267,009 and last year 77,168 drivers were fined $20,494,483 in the first three terms.

Mother-of-two Shirin Town, 45, from Camperdown, said school zone speeders needed a stronger reminder to slow down if fines weren’t enough.

“Something needs to be done differently because obviously­ the money isn’t making an impact,” Mrs Town said. “Make the penalties harsher in school zones and put speeders at risk of losing their licences.”

Mrs Town, mother to Gabe, 10, and Dash, 8, said motorists needed to show some self-control around school zones because children could be unpredictable.

“I don’t care if you’re a heart surgeon — if you’re around a school you can wait an extra 30 seconds to get where you’re going,” Mrs Town said.

Roads Minister Melinda Pavey said those who speed through school zones are putting the lives of children at risk, as well as their own.

She said mobile speed cameras were not currently used in school zones but at fixed speed camera locations there had been a 92 per cent fall in fatalities and a 36 per cent fall in injuries.

“All NSW speed cameras are highly visible because we want drivers to see them and slow down,” she said.