Link: http://www.newsdurhamregion.com/article/85839

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Sep 13, 2007 - 03:13 PM

By Jeff Mitchell

DURHAM -- Looking for the answer to traffic safety in your youngsters' school zones?

You might want to take a look in the mirror.

That's the conclusion of a Durham traffic cop after a week-long back-to-school blitz resulted in hundreds of charges, many of them laid against people who were dropping their children off for the day.

"People need the reminder, obviously," said Sergeant Shaun Arnott.

"I think it's very important that we do that -- just to give people a tap on the shoulder."

During Operation In The Zone, officers fanned out across the region from Sept. 4, the first day of school, until Friday the 7th. During that relatively short period of time officers wrote 1,091 tickets, including 796 for speeding, 80 for stop-sign infractions and eight for aggressive driving.

One motorist was ticketed for speeding twice during the campaign -- the second time having just left the courthouse to pay his first speeding fine -- while another was busted for drunk driving.

Yet another was pinched for flashing his high beams at other drivers to warn them of the presence of officers with radar in a school zone; the charge, officially, is Prohibited Use of Alternating High-beam Headlights.

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