The number of statements of offense issued by Quebec police officers in school zones in 2022 has practically halved compared to 2020, despite the urban lull due to the COVID-19 pandemic and confinement.
That year, police officers in the capital issued 699 tickets for speeding in school zones, while they only issued 353 last year, documents obtained by The duty under the Act respecting access to documents held by public bodies.
However, the dangerous behavior of motorists near schools has been the subject of increasingly lively denunciations in the public space since the death of young Mariia Legenkovska in Montreal. Groups of parents must also take to the streets again on Tuesday morning, in various cities in Quebec, on the occasion of a “national demonstration” against “road insecurity in school zones”.
How do you explain the drop in the number of fines given near schools in the capital? By a possible improvement in the behavior of motorists, responds the Quebec City Police Service (SPVQ). “The number of road safety operations carried out in school zones is roughly the same between 2021 and 2022. It is therefore possible that the simple visible police presence had an impact on the number of infractions,” said his door in writing. -word David Poitras.
“When the cat is not there…”
Words that surprise the parents behind the mobilization scheduled for Tuesday. “It’s surprising that it was double in 2020, when we were in the middle of a pandemic and everyone was at home”, advances Vicky Plourde, one of the organizers of the demonstration who must stand close of the Berges school, in the Saint-Roch district. “The police are never there,” she says, although “parents see violations almost every day.”
The spokesperson for the neighboring Saint-Sauveur district council, Myriam Nickner-Hudon, agrees. The police are not very present around the school, she says, and “when the cat is not there, the mice dance”.
Last year, in her neighborhood, a car ran over the toes of a nine-year-old girl who was crossing the street to go to Saint-Malo primary school. The school is located on rue Marie-de-l’Incarnation, a five-lane artery where the speed limit of 50 kilometers per hour is not respected. “It’s a real joke, it’s so common [qu’elle soit dépassée] ! »
Mme Nickner-Hudon adds that motorists often fail to see children due to the presence of illegally parked vehicles too close to intersections.
Both women admit that increased police presence can’t fix everything, but they want law enforcement to take the lead. “When we tried to get more police surveillance, we were told to stop calling because [le SPVQ] was aware of the problem. But we did not see more of a police presence, ”laments Mme Plunder.
new events
Vicky Plourde is one of the parents who organized a demonstration near the Berges school last December to demonstrate that the problem goes beyond the borders of the metropolis. They now want to raise the pressure a notch by holding a “national demonstration” organized with groups of parents in Montreal and organizations such as Piétons Québec.
The organizers also promised on Monday to be present on Tuesday in “more than 25 schools across Quebec”, among others in Lévis, Gatineau, Granby and Sherbrooke, in addition to Montreal and Quebec. Mobilization should take place early in the morning, on the way to school, at problematic intersections.
Governments, they say, must develop “a road safety strategy”. They want to see the addition of school streets, bollards and one-way streets, as well as an increase in police presence and tougher penalties.
We were told to stop calling because [le SPVQ] was aware of the problem. But we did not see any more police presence.
Last December, The duty revealed that the number of tickets issued in school zones had also dropped significantly in Montreal, but not during the same period. After declining markedly between 2018 and 2020, tickets rose again after the pandemic. The Service de police de la Ville de Montréal then argued that these figures were the result of a new police deployment strategy. The metropolis also has older data than the capital, where school zone tickets have only been counted separately since 2019.
Finally, data from Quebec show that the overwhelming majority of these fines concern speeding: only a very small number of them — between 2 and 15, depending on the year — concern non-compliance with the directives of the crossing guards.
With Laurianne Croteau