Educational material highlighting the 20km speed limit around school buses will be developed by Central Otago police and road safety advisers after a police exercise in the district found most drivers travel at dangerous speeds around moving and parked buses.
Last week, school buses in Alexandra, Clyde, Cromwell, Hawea Flat, and Wanaka were shadowed by police, who monitored the speed of passing motorists.
Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes district council road safety adviser Jo Robinson said most drivers slowed while passing school buses, although hardly any reached the appropriate limit of 20kmh.
Mrs Robinson said the problem was widespread in central towns, school zones, and main roads or highways linking towns.
"The speeds on highways are more frightening because they are naturally higher and the risk of something going horribly wrong is increased.
But we saw people passing parked school buses at 50kmh, when they should have been travelling 20kmh," she said.
The exercise was prompted by regular calls from concerned bus drivers and the parents of school-aged children, she said.
"We wanted to go out and check whether the calls were valid and see how bad the situation was. Sometimes the speeds would make you cringe," she said.
Mrs Robinson said people with school-aged children or those working and living around schools should know the speed limit around buses was 20kmh.
"It's mainly the people who don't have any relationship with schools which need to be reminded. It's an education thing rather than people blatantly flouting the law," she said.
Mrs Robinson will work with highway patrol officers to develop educational material about the speed limit.
