The Ottawa Police Service says officers handed out 36 tickets during a safety blitz at 18 school zones in Ottawa last week. Officers were watching for speeding and other infractions on March 26 and 27. In a post on X, the police service said 14 of the tickets issued during the two-day blitz were for disobeying stop signs and seven were for speeding. In one case, a driver was stopped allegedly going 79 km/h in a 40 km/h school zone on Abbott Street East. The blitz comes after two recent incidents of pedestrians being struck by vehicles driven in or near school zones. On March 23, crossing guard Peter Clark was killed when he was struck by a vehicle on Cedarview Road, near Kennevale Drive, not far from Mary Honeywell Elementary School. On March 12, a child was hit by a car outside St. Juan Diego Catholic School on Main Halyard Road in Barrhaven and was seriously injured. “Road safety is a shared responsibility. Please slow down and obey signage in school zones so our most vulnerable road users can get to their destinations safely,” Ottawa police said. Sittsville Coun. Glen Gower noted on Bluesky that Abbott Street East once had a photo radar camera, one of 60 in Ottawa that were in operation before the Ontario government ordered them removed. “Abbott Street was the first location for automated speed enforcement (speed cameras) in Stittsville,” he said. In March 2025, photo radar cameras in Ottawa issued more than 30,000 tickets, or nearly 1,000 per day. According to City of Ottawa data, the camera on Abbott Street East between Moss Hill Trail and Shea Road was installed in April 2022 and issued more than 5,000 tickets that year. It issued 107 tickets in March 2025, and 1,275 before being turned off last November. With files from CTV’s Josh Pringle.
