School zone flashing lights for St Patricks

Scot MacDonald with St Patrick's Primary School Principal Cheryl Walsh and studentsScot MacDonald with St Patrick's Primary School Principal Cheryl Walsh and students

St Patrick’s Primary School, Gosford, will share in a $5 million program to install school zone flashing lights where schools have multiple busy entrances, and have higher road safety risks.

Parliamentary Secretary for the Central Coast, Mr Scot MacDonald MLC, today announced that a new set of fl ashing lights will be installed to improve road safety for children travelling to and from school. “This will build on the NSW Government’s initial rollout which ensured all eligible schools across NSW had at least one set of flashing lights. “Children are some of our most vulnerable road users, and we know school zone fl ashing lights are an effective way of warning drivers and riders to slow down to improve safety.

“It’s great that this Government took the initiative to identify the most high risk schools to ensure they benefi t from this extra level of protection,” Mr MacDonald said. St Patrick’s Primary School Principal, Ms Cheryl Walsh, said “We are very relieved that RMS is installing fl ashing lights on Victoria St. “We hope that fl ashing lights can be installed on Melbourne St in the future.” All eligible schools with multiple busy entrances were consulted in the process of selecting school zones for this program.

The new locations for school zone fl ashing lights were selected by a risk assessment model which takes into account a number of factors including approach speed, pedestrian numbers, traffi c volumes, and heavy vehicle traffi c volumes. Flashing lights are funded through the Community Road Safety Fund, where all speed and red light camera fi nes go directly towards vital road safety programs. School zones are enforced on government gazetted school days to ensure operation dates and times are consistent and easy to follow.

Media release, Sep 1, 2016 Mitchell Cutting, Offi ce of Scot MacDonald MLC