PARENTS are the cause of most traffic accidents in school zones, not other motorists according to Orange City and Cabonne Council road safety officer Andrea Hamilton-Vaughan.
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Her statements are backed up by an NRMA survey that shows one in four drivers admitted to ignoring parking signs or rules when dropping off or picking up kids from school.
Mrs Hamilton-Vaughan said motorists who didn’t need to be near school zones during drop-off and pick-up hours “avoid the area like the plague”.
She said parents needed to take more responsibility for their actions when collecting or dropping off their child.
“From doing pedestrian counts I’ve seen this all too often, parents dropping kids off on the opposite side of the road to the school ... parents not holding their child’s hand when crossing the road, children can be unpredictable,” she said.
“It’s really important parents obey the rules and pay attention to the signage that’s there.”
The NRMA survey of 500 Australian drivers showed one in three drivers were stressed when dropping off or collecting children from school.
Mrs Hamilton-Vaughan said parents had a habit of not sticking to the speed limit in school zones and research showed a child had a 75 per cent survival rate if there was a collision with a car at 40 kilometres per hour, unlike at 50 kilometres per hour where the child had a 25 per cent chance of survival.
“Police find most of the motorists not doing the speed limit are parents of children at the school,” she said.
Office of State Revenue statistics show since July last year to April this year 190 speeding fines in school zones were issued to drivers in Orange. In the same period last year there were 207 fines, but in the 2011/2012 financial year 97 drivers were caught speeding in school zones.
About 74 per cent, or 141 drivers, were caught doing less than 50km/h in a 40km/h zone.
nicole.kuter@fairfaxmedia.com.au