Law enforcement agencies throughout Saskatchewan, including here in Estevan, issued what is being called a shocking number of tickets during a two-day blitz last week.
Dubbed Operation Student Safety, the SGI sponsored blitz resulted in more than 800 tickets province wide, 352 for speeding in a school zone.
Locally, the Estevan Police Service issued 43 tickets, 29 of which were for speeding in school zones.
Cst. Warren Morrical, the supervisor of Traffic Services for the EPS, said the issue of speeding in school zones is an important one to the department and something they place a large emphasis on.
"Whenever we've got kids involved it is a priority for us," Morrical said. "Anything we can do to keep them safe, we are going to do, so in the school zones, it was a province-wide blitz. We do receive weekly complaints from parents, teachers or administrators, specific to complaints regarding school buses or speeding in school zones or turning around, those types of things.
"I would suggest even one a week is too many so I can tell you, from our perspective, as the supervisor of the Traffic Services section, my guys have pretty much a standing mandate that every day we will be in those school zones at the appropriate times, attempting to address those concerns and educating people and making sure that it doesn't happen a second time."
Along with the 29 tickets for speeding in a school zone, the EPS issued five tickets for speeding in non-school zones, three for failing to wear a seatbelt, five for cellphone usage while driving and one for disobeying a red light.
Provincially, law enforcement officers issued:
352 tickets for speeding in a school zone
179 other speeding tickets
125 seatbelt violations
61 cellphone violations
30 tickets for failing to stop at stop sign/red light
20 tickets for jaywalking
8 tickets for failing to yield to a pedestrian
60 various other tickets
According to SGI, last month's province-wide blitz focusing on intersection safety, Operation Crossroads, resulted in a total of 452 tickets.
