In Quebec City as in Montreal, motorists driving inside school zones are going too fast, shows data collected by the CAA-Quebec Foundation. Around schools, up to 96% of motorists exceeded the prescribed speed limit, with some exceeding 70 km/h in a 30 km/h zone.
Posted at 12:11 p.m.
This is what emerges from an “observation activity” conducted by the CAA-Quebec Foundation last week.
In Quebec, the speed readings were taken around lunchtime, near Saint-Claude school. In a 30 km/h zone, motorists were driving at an average of 45 km/h.
Among the 25 measures that were taken, two motorists were caught driving at more than 70 km/h.
“This is a very sad fact, since 92% of motorists were driving too fast, despite the signs being clearly present,” writes the Foundation in a press release.
Montreal drivers are hardly more disciplined. Near Sainte-Arsène school one morning, the average speed was 40 km/h in a 30 km/h zone. This gap is “a little smaller compared to the Quebec school, but all the same, we notice that almost all of the drivers, or 96%, were still driving much too fast,” notes the CAA-Quebec.
The behavior of motorists approaching school zones is not much better. In Quebec, 96% of them were driving above the 50 km/h limit (for an average of 56.7 km/h), while in Montreal, six motorists out of ten exceeded 40 km/h. h, with an average of 42.4 km/h.
The CAA-Quebec Foundation believes that “there is still a lot of work to be done to make school zones safe”.
“We are concerned about speeding in school zones. It’s a very bad idea to put children in danger to try to save a handful of seconds at best,” said Marco Harrison, Director of the CAA-Quebec Foundation.