Officers from the local Neighbourhood Policing Team visited Bloomfield Road Primary School in Bangor on the mornings of Thursday 19 May and Friday 20 May to launch a new School Gate road safety campaign.
Ards and North Down PCSP have provided funding for signage for school gates and high visibility bibs and caps for pupils to wear when carrying out their roles as School Road Safety Officers (SRSO).
Each school will receive a road sign to place at the school gates during busy times. The pupils carried out school gate patrols accompanied by Uniform NPT officers to identify incidents of illegal/dangerous parking around the school entrances.
Commenting on the initiative Neighbourhood Officer, Constable Keith Davidson said: “When an incident was observed, Police approached the driver along with pupils, who carried signs highlighting the vehicle as being parked dangerously, and gave the driver a ‘ticket’ which outlined the issues.
“The pupils were very quick to understand the idea and to identify bad parking. Unfortunately, some of the parents were not so fast which resulted in the pupils issuing a number of ‘guidance tickets’.
A short presentation was then given by PSNI at the school assembly in respect of road safety and pupils acting as SRSO were presented with certificates.
“The school principal and staff found the concept an excellent idea and hoped this would benefit in educating persons carrying out the school run to drive with caution. Speed detection was also carried out by SRSO. Officers will be rolling this out across the Borough over the next few weeks and then again in September so keep an eye out for us.”
