School zone safety blitz sees nearly 200 tickets handed out in two days

Students are back in class and the Ottawa Police Service is out in full force keeping school zones in the city safe. 

The school zone safety blitz launched on Monday, and by Tuesday officers had handed out 187 tickets. 

Constable Jon Hall uses social media to spread awareness for the safety blitz, tweeting out his location every day. 

But despite the warning, he said that drivers are still behaving badly. 

“We had one guy speeding with open bottles of alcohol rolling around in his vehicle, we've had a couple of suspended drivers, we've had people blowing a red light near the school,” he explained. “We've had city buses, teachers, parents, you name it.”

Hall explained that road safety is a shared responsibility and a community issue. 

“The responsibility lies with the community, with those drivers out there, to take ownership of road safety as an issue,” he explained. “Take it as a societal issue and drive with care, drive with compassion and empathy.”

When asked about his use of social media to report on the offenders, Hall says, “It's unreal, my thumbs are cramping up here.” 

But he admits that his humorous tweets are not meant to criminalize the drivers. 

“They're not necessarily bad people, we don't stop them who they are as a person, we stop drivers based on the offences observed.” 

The school zone safety blitz will continue until the end of the week.