QUESTION:
With construction ongoing at Queen Mary elementary, clearly the school is not open. Do the signs on Keith Road that require you to slow down in school zones during school hours still apply? Do they apply in the summer, when school is out?
Michelle Blaksic
Dear Ms. Blaksic:
Thank you for your question.
The short answer is no. Section 147 of the Motor Vehicle Act says: "A person driving a vehicle on a regular school day and on a highway where signs are displayed stating a speed limit of 30 kilometres per hour, or on which the numerals '30' are prominently shown, must drive at a rate of speed not exceeding 30 km/h while approaching or passing the school building and school grounds to which the signs relate, between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m." If you know for certain that the school is closed for construction, then you would be able to say with sufficient certainty that the school is not running regular school days.
A "regular school day" means Monday to Friday, but excludes weekends, statutory holidays, and summer holidays. That said, because many parents take their kids to school playgrounds in the evenings and on weekends, drivers must always use caution around schools even outside the school zone speed limit times.
A recent amendment to the act allows school zone hours to be extended where warranted, for example to account for schools that see more intensive use. Many schools also offer extracurricular activities that may occur before school starts or that may go into the early evening, and school playgrounds and fields are frequently used during summer days.
I, for one, have taken my kids to their school playground after supper to burn off that last bit of energy before bed. Actually, that's not entirely true: Try as we might, my wife and I can never seem to completely burn out their energy - though they don't seem to have the same difficulty sapping ours.
Signs warning drivers of public playgrounds follow similar rules, though they do not limit the rule to regular school days. These zones, called playground zones, are in force between dawn and dusk, which may at times during the year extend beyond 5 p.m. and are in effect every day of the year.
There has been some movement in recent years to combine rules for school and playground zones, calling them "child activity zones." This makes good sense to me, because school playgrounds are used in almost exactly the same fashion as public playgrounds.
The fines for speeding in school and playground zones are steep. If you are going between 31 km/h and 50 km/h, the fine is $196. Between 51 km/h and 70 km/h, it is $253. From there, the fines rise incrementally to $368 and $483. Convictions also come with three driver penalty points.
If that isn't enough to deter you, let me offer another perspective: I often give a presentation on school zone safety to members of the community, and in the presentation I share some statistics about the types of collisions school zone speed limits try to prevent.
A child pedestrian struck by a vehicle going 30 km/h has around a 90 per cent chance of survival. At 50 km/h, that chance drops to 10 per cent.
Quite truly, 20 km/h can be the difference between life and death.
