REGULAR speed blitzes in Bathurst school zones are reaping benefits for local police – and providing a healthy boost to the state government’s coffers.
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Officers attached to Chifley Highway Patrol are writing around 20 speeding fines in school zones every month – an average of one every day the school zones are in operation.
And the problem is only getting worse with more drivers fined in the 10 months to April 2017 than had been fined in the previous 12 months.
Latest figures from the NSW Office of State Revenue show Chifley officers fined 215 drivers a total of $63,000 for speeding in school zones between July 2016 and April 2017.
That’s a significant jump on the year before when 205 drivers were fined for the whole of the 2015-16 financial year.
The majority of those drivers (116) were exceeding the speed limit by less than 10km/h while another 89 were exceeding the limit by between 10-20km/h.
Just 10 drivers were charged with driving at more than 20km/h over the speed limit in a school zone.
Overall, more than 3000 drivers have been fined for speeding on all Chifley area roads in the 10 months to April.
December was the worst month for speeding drivers with 435 fined a total of $134,000 by Chifley officers while October was the next worst (404 speeding drivers, $123,000 worth of fines).
Total fines for the 2016-17 year are set to top $1 million in the Chifley area alone.