Police catch motorists not giving kids a brake (4 photos)

Sometimes people turn into the thing they complain about.

The Guelph Police found that out Thursday morning when one of the speeders they stopped on Ptarmigan Drive was a person that admitted to regularly calling police to complain about speeders in her neighbourhood.

The traffic stop was part of this week's "Give Kids A Brake" traffic safety initiative that saw officers deployed at or near various schools throughout the city as the new school year began.

Thursday morning constables Dan Mosey and Paul Cook had the radar guns out on Ptarmigan Drive, just in front of Kortright Hills Public School.

"She told me she calls police to complain about speeders," said Cst. Cook after handing out a ticket to a woman clocked doing 67 kilometres per hour in a school 30 kmh zone.

He noted that the woman lives just a block away from the school, metres from the posted "30" speed limit sign.

"A lot of the time the people we stop are the ones doing the complaining," Cook said. "I think I've stopped only one person that didn't live in the area."

Thursday morning saw a total of nine tickets issued in the city at two locations, five of them on Ptarmigan Drive.

On Tuesday police handed out 63 tickets at various locations, including 17 on Watson Road near Couling Crescent and the new Guelph Lake Public School.

Wednesday there was 26 tickets issued.

There were plenty more to come on Ptarmigan Drive: a car doing 47 kmh, a van doing 51 kmh.  Some slightly over the speed limit got warnings. Most got tickets.

There are two types of school zones in Guelph: the permanent 30 kmh limit on residential streets and the illuminated 40 kmh signs that operate from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. on the busier arterial roads, said 36-year Guelph Police veteran Mosey.

The comments from motorists can be a little, errr, odd.

"I was doing 30 kmh," said the driver of a black BMW clocked doing 47.

"What's the problem? I've never been stopped before," said a driver on Grange Road earlier in the week.

Another driver asked Mosey "how fast was I going?"

"I told them, you're the one with the speedometre in front of you, it's up to you to know how fast you were going,"

Parents walking their kids to school certainly seemed to appreciate the effort.

"I don't think I've ever seen the cars go this slow on this road," said one mom on her way to the school.

"Thanks for keeping our neighbourhood safe," another said to Cst. Cook as she returned home from dropping off at the school.

In addition to speeding tickets, police have been issuing the odd distracted driving ticket and helping by-law officers with parking infraction notices in school zones.

Additional road safety campaigns will continue over the upcoming weeks, police said.