NSW Motorists Ignoring School Zone Speed Limits: Auditor-General

Mar 1, 2010
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FIGURES RELEASED BY the NSW Audit Office reveal that school zone speed limits are being ignored by many motorists.

Auditor-General, Peter Achterstraat said although casualty numbers have dropped, ten out of 12 schools surveyed said that speeding was an ongoing problem.

 

“Only two out of 12 school zones surveyed saw motorists slow down to the speed limit,” Mr Achterstraat said.

“There has been a marked reduction in casualties around schools over the past ten years for school aged pedestrians. It is estimated that there are only 60 school age casualties each year in school zones. But while this represents a reduction, it is still 60 casualties too many. When it comes to children, safety has to be put first."

 

Mr Achterstraat said that motorists either don’t know that they are in a school zone or that they think it is okay to speed. With less than one per cent of school zones having speed cameras, there is a concern that motorists are willfully ignoring the posted speed limit.

In his report, Mr Achterstraat said that the RTA NSW needs to increase awareness of school zones, ensuring that signage is clearly visible and free of obstructions and graffiti. 

The report adds that school zones should be listed on maps used by GPS systems, and flashing lights should be used in school zones that have non-standard operating times.

Mr Achterstraat said that while only two children have been killed in school zones since 1998, about 60 school-age children are injured each year in school zones.

He said that the NSW Government needs to live up to the promise of former roads minister Eric Roozendaal to begin rotating mobile speed cameras across the state's many school zones that don't have fixed cameras.


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Comments

  • [reply]
    5 months ago 0 points
    Who funded these studies? And who funds the NSW Audit Office?
  • Mick [reply]
    5 months ago 0 points
    I travel through 2 school zones every day during the speed enforcement time.
    I always travel at 35-40 kph.
    I have lost count of the number times I have been overtaken at speed.
    Considerable speed I might add.

  • Shifter [reply]
    5 months ago 0 points
    I guess it comes down to who is getting the revenue from the speeding fines. Obviously the state government is getting the money from speeding fines and not putting it back into the police force to allow extra patrols in these areas. It really should be a self funding system if they are serious about reducing speeding in these zones. The police would clean up in these areas because I always get overtaken at speed too and wonder why would the drivers not slow down and where are the police? It's obviously complacency because they know they will get away with it. I heard an interview on the radio with a police commander that they simply don't have the funding to provide patrols in school zones. Self funding I say, almost like a perpetual motion machine.
  • [reply]
    5 months ago 0 points
    how many of these injuries to the school aged pedestrians were speed related? i'm pretty sure there is a percentage of these incidents caused by low speed maneuvers carried out in packed school zones.
  • Godspeed [reply]
    5 months ago 0 points
    Achterstraat has himself highlighted the point that the signage needs to be free from all obstructions. ALL zones should also have the flashing lights powered by the solar panels. There are so many bloody signs everywhere, and some obstructed by overgrown trees, etc, I am sure that almost everyone has, at some point in the last year, missed the entry sign for a school zone unintentionally.
  • Nightshader [reply]
    5 months ago 0 points
    I couldn't see many of the injuries being related to speed. Anyone who has driven through a school zone at 8:55AM would know that it is the most dangerous area for someone to try and drive through. Triple parked cars, people reversing seemingly randomly down the road, people in big 4WD’s merging back out onto the road while looking at their kids waving them off.

    I have seen more kids almost get hit because their parents dropped them off across the road from the school and they ran across the road behind someone who has been reversing then close calls from a speeding motorist. Without a doubt speeding through a school zone is moronic but I don’t believe it’s the issue they should be focusing on.
  • Wheelnut [reply]
    5 months ago 0 points
    Given that the drivers primary focus is meant to be on the road then isn't that where the speed limits should be painted/posted [like they used to be]?

    They could even introduce a colour coded line marking system for example : white = 40Km/h; yellow = 60 Km/h orange = 80Km/h' red = 100Km/h
  • Shifter [reply]
    5 months ago 0 points
    Signage is not always the issue, even zones that have all of the flashing lights and painted signs on the road have people flying through. It is general contempt and lack of policing. get more police in the zones and people will start taking notice of the signs.
  • [reply]
    5 months ago 0 points
    And the worst ones for speeding through school zones are the parents of kids... too many times I have slowed for a school zone only to have a SUV nearly rear-end me, and when they back off and I can see the driver its a mum that looks like she had trouble seeing over the steering wheel, often walking on the phone.

    Why do we have to have 40km/h zones on all sides of a school? If kids are too young to know how to cross the road safely they should be dropped off AT the school, not across the road. At the worst, have a pedestrian crossing to the other side of the road. Make a designated drop-off zone and its 40km/h just on that street. If the kids are walking to school from further away then they are old enough to know how to cross the road safely.
  • Wheelnut [reply]
    5 months ago 0 points
    I agree Matthew

    IMHO If you want to drive a "Mobile Fortress" you should have to have a [MR or HR] Truck drivers licence...
    I mean they are built like a truck [on a seperate rigid chassis]; are nearly the same size as a truck; weigh as much as a truck; are as manoeuvrable as a truck; with the same poor level of visibility of a truck.

    That would reduce the number of them on our roads particularly in metro areas - most of them are only bought as a status symbol afterall and less than 10% of them would ever go off road.

  • Mick [reply]
    5 months ago 0 points
    Bring back the Lollipop people.
    They were eyes, ears and mentors for little kids.

    Better than a painted sign or a flashing light.
  • Shifter [reply]
    5 months ago 0 points
    Amen to that Mick. Also give them a spike on their lollipop that they can crack your windscreen with if you're speeding through, should be about equivalent cost to the speeding fine. I'm only half joking.
  • Wheelnut [reply]
    5 months ago 0 points
    Nah - give em a Paintball gun - because we all know that most SUV driving soccer mums hate getting the slightest bit ofmud on their cars immaculate duco; imagine how they would feel getting it covered in Fluoro-Paint.

    Not only that but how are you going to explain that to the cops you boss you other half or your insurance company etc.

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