The LUD Committees of Landmark and Lorette have made a counterintuitive decision when it comes to their school speed zones.

Where reduced speed zones are typically thought to make roads safer for schoolchildren, these communities have found that, for them, it is just the opposite.

After a young student was hit by a car on a residential street in Landmark last year, the LUD began looking at ways to prevent that from happening again. According to the Chief Administrative Officer for the Rural Municipality of Taché, that event was investigated and a problem was found.

Read more: Young Cyclist Struck By Van In Landmark

“Part of the reason why that accident happened was because of the speed restrictions in our school zones that are inadvertently diverting traffic off of Provincial Road 206,” explains Christine Hutlet. Essentially, she says, vehicles are dodging the school speed zones to save time by darting through residential neighborhoods.

Hutlet says this issue was brought before the province “and one of the ideas that came out of that meeting was to reduce the distance within that school zone area.”

Both the Landmark LUD and the RM Council felt this was a reasonable solution and the 300-metre zone has been shortened to 200 metres or “100 metres on either side of the crosswalk.” Hutlet says that change is effective immediately but proper signage may take a matter of months.

Meanwhile, the community of Lorette, experiencing very similar issues in front of their high school on PR 207, has decided to adopt this plan as well.

“With Landmark moving this way, Lorette felt it was a good move to make too.”

Both communities also plan on installing pedestrian-activated crosswalks near their respective schools sometime this summer.