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Video: Boston Tait asked to decrease the speed limit on Victory Road

Boston Tait, 10, who goes to Pleasantdale School and lives on Victory Road, made a speech during the Estevan police board meeting on Wednesday.
Boston Tait
Boston Tait's spring presentation resulted in the school zone expansion. File photo

Boston Tait, 10, who goes to Pleasantdale School and lives on Victory Road, made a speech during the Estevan police board meeting on Wednesday.

He asked the board to consider decreasing the speed limit on Victory Road and expand the road on to the Pleasantdale school zone.

“I love playing basketball and hockey on my driveway with my friends. Sometimes the ball goes on the road and it is unsafe. People are going like 50 (kilometres per hour), which is the speed limit, but it’s too fast,” said Tait during his speech.

He explained that his house is just two buildings away from the school, and that’s where people don’t even start to slow down for the school zone yet.

Tait also noted that there are a lot of children living on that street and he started the petition, which a lot of people already signed. He forwarded the collected letters to the city clerk Judy Pilloud. Tait also suggested some possible measures that can be taken.

“All school zones in Estevan should be expanded. People are going 60, then getting to the school zone and then slowing down to 30. So at the beginning of the school zone, they are going 40. There should be licence plate readers at the edge of the Estevan school zones. This will help, because people are not wanting to pay a fine, so they will start going slow in school zones,” said Tait.

He questioned if it’s going to take a kid getting hit in that area to change something.

The speech caused a discussion among the board members. Estevan Police Chief Paul Ladouceur explained how they usually go about such requests.

“When it comes to speeds in the city, there is a number of processes we usually take before we make a decision… We would look at any changes we make from an evidence-based perspective. Have we had accidents on Victory Road before? Have we had the reports of aggressive driving?” said Ladouceur. 

They also conduct the research to find out the average speed of the traffic in the area. After that they bring all the collected data back to the Traffic Control Committee, which decides the best way to address it, whether it’s decreasing the speed limit, putting speed bumps or other possible measures.

“My recommendation to the board will be that we follow the same process with this request,” said Ladouceur.

City Councillor Trevor Knibbs also noted that the discussed area has quite a few uncontrolled intersections some of which may soon be changed to controlled ones with the government funding that Estevan received recently.

“We look at the statistics, we have 297 accidents within the past five years on uncontrolled intersections in the city, 57 injuries. That’s pretty significant… We did get funding to deal with 40 … uncontrolled intersections in the city. We will work with the Traffic Committee to come up with the determination what are those priority intersections to deal with first,” said Ladouceur.

The changes in intersections may affect the described situation on Victory Road. 

The chief thanked Tait for his recommendations and noted that he has received a lot of valuable ideas from youth in this community. He also reassured Tait that his voice was heard and they will proceed with further actions.