An educational blitz could be on the horizon for Kitimat drivers unaware of local speed limits.
Kitimat resident and member of Kitimat’s Emergency Services team Cameron Kelso had come to council September 8 to originally talk about lowering the speed limits in Kitimat.
Before he showed up to the meeting last Monday he learned that, in fact, the town does have varying speed limits.
Not that they aren’t poorly marked though, and Kelso is still hopeful the town can play a role in promoting safer driving in the community.
In the Kitimat Municipal Code, speed limits are determined based on the road type. Boulevards, such as Haisla, are set to 60 km/h.
An avenue, like Kingfisher, is 50 km/h. A street, basically any of the horseshoes, are capped at 30 km/h.
You’re also only supposed to go 15 km/h in a parking lot.
There are some exceptions within the Code. For instance Kuldo Boulevard is capped at 50 km/h rather than 60.
Even though Kelso was pleased to see speed limits reflected the neighbourhoods they exist in, he believes work needs to be done to make streets safer for children and families.
“The last thing I want is for a little kid to get tagged in front of my house,” he said. His home at a corner at a through-fare for many children going to school in the day means he sees the hazards of speeding drivers daily.
He said he’s seen a number of near misses and would hate to see the statistics of how many occur in town, were such statistics tracked.
Councillors were thankful for him in bringing the matter to their attention, some noting that they've seen issues either on their own streets or heard of issues through family members
The council directed to have this matter referred to the community traffic committee for discussion and future recommendations to council.