Saskatoon police shed light on school zone enforcement

Police have shed some light on how often they enforce school zones in Saskatoon.

Deputy Chief Randy Huisman of the Saskatoon Police Service shared some information during the SPS’s annual traffic report to a recent Board of Police Commissioners meeting.

He says school zones are generally enforced by 18 officers who are assigned to three schools each month. They have to spend a minimum of regular 45-minute intervals doing enforcement at each school.

Huisman couldn’t say at the time whether those were weekly or monthly intervals within that month of enforcement.

“It’s forever rotating by 18 different constables throughout the year,” Huisman said, adding police try to spread out enforcement as much as possible to different schools throughout the school year.

Generally, areas for traffic enforcement are selected in four ways: Through public complaints about traffic in certain neighbourhoods and on certain streets, in areas with high collision statistics, in areas selected by the staff sergeant, and areas that are left up to officer discretion.

Most school enforcement is assigned by a police staff sergeant, Huisman said.

He said each school will see enforcement assigned to it about three times during the school year.

However, the start of school in September is treated differently.

Huisman said there is more enforcement during the first few weeks of school, when police are trying to remind people that school zones are also back in session alongside students.

He said blitzes on school zone enforcement will occur around this time and combined traffic services in the province will work together “until we believe that education through enforcement has slowed