The number of Canberra drivers speeding in school zones in the past five weeks has almost reached the total number booked for the same offence over last year.
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Across the time period, 961 drivers were booked by mobile speed vans and 40 receiving police-issued infringement notices.
The officer in charge of ACT Road Policing, acting Inspector Mark Richardson, described the number of offences as "staggering" in such a short first-term timeframe, with excessive speed and reports of cars failing to stop at school crossings coming from parents and school crossing supervisors.
"Over the past couple of weeks my officers had received numerous complaints from members of the public, both northside and southside, about motorists speeding through school zones," he said.
"We're not sure what's happening the community or whether people are being a bit blase about schools or not paying attention.
"Some of the people caught no doubt had children at the schools so we really want the community to be vigilant about their speeds around schools, especially primary schools, where we've got really young kids that are really vulnerable because they don't have that same attention [span] as other pedestrians."
"They [young children] are quite unpredictable; they can run out from behind cars and obviously the faster you are going, the harder it is to stop."
Complementing the police enforcement activity, Access Canberra's mobile speed vans had monitored 107,000 vehicles during the five-week period across 60 ACT school zones.
Acting Inspector Richardson said there was a "near miss" at a primary school last week and he urged motorists to pay more attention, particularly during the posted ACT school zone designation between 8am and 4pm.
He said that in light of what's occurred recently, police would be conducting high visibility enforcement activity around school zones again this week.
"No-one wants to be involved in an accident involving a school child; the consequences of speeding in a school zone can be really tragic," he said.
"Having people not stopping at a school crossing is really dangerous and it's really quite stupid.
"We really need to bring focus back on the schools and let the public know we are going to enforce it and I don't think you will see many cautions or warnings given out if you are speeding through a school zone."
He urged parents and all drivers to be patient during pick-up times because of the congestion issue.
"People are driving onto the wrong side of the road to get around cars waiting to turn into school pick-up zones and that's just crazy behaviour," he said.
