Students are returning to schools all over Australia and New Zealand and it means that school zone laws across both countries are coming back too! In almost all cases this means that drivers will have to slow down to 40km/h in those zones with times generally falling somewhere between 8am-9:30am and 2:30pm-4pm every weekday. As a new driver it can sometimes feel like this is just one extra rule we now have to look out for while focusing on so many other things on the road. We’re already expected to be focused on the road ahead, our mirrors, our blind spots, etc. and now we have to keep track of the time as well? Is it really worth it?
What isn’t written on the school zone sign though is just how much of a difference they can make in keep our roads safer for it’s most vulnerable users. We don’t have to be the ones to tell you that children don’t always think before they walk out into the road and roads near schools are of course the most likely place to encounter this particular brand of pedestrian. But aren’t we as drivers already looking out for pedestrians all the time? To add to that in most cases the speed limit in these areas is already around 50km/h all the time, does going 10km/h slower really make a difference to anything besides your estimated arrival time at your destination?
Short answer, yes, more than you’d believe!
For the longer answer lets throw to Road Safety expert John Elliott:
At 40km per hour on a dry road, it takes a car on average 27 meters to come to a stop. This is made up of combination of 17 meters of reaction time and 10 meters of braking and stopping time. This is compared to 37 meters at 50km/h, and 56m at 60km/h. That’s a 20 meter difference in stopping distance when going just 10km/h faster than 40km/h and it’s a 39 meter difference when going 20km/h faster. Just think about how far that is and what a difference it would make if you saw a child jump out in front of you on the road!
Going slower also has a huge effect on the survivability of a pedestrian in the tragic instances when a crash does occur. One study points to a survival rate being at 90% if an impact occurs when the car is travelling at 30km/h but at 40km/h that drops to 60% and 20% at 50km/h. If we’re going 40km/h the chance that we’ve managed to brake and bring our speed down at the point of impact, even if it wasn’t enough to prevent the crash, might still mean that we’ve prevented a major tragedy from occurring.
Since 2020, 52 pedestrians aged between 5 to 16 have died have died on Australian roads. Less than 10% of those were in 40km zones, compared with with more than 38% in 50km zones. Lower speeds are really important!
While I know that’ll be enough to convince you, there’s one more reason to follow these laws. In NSW alone of the 715,788 fines issued by speed cameras in 2025 (collectively more than $192 million in fines), 123,989, or over 17% were in school zones. So we’re not just saving lives but our money and probably our license as well!
So lets keep our eyes open for those school zones because they really do save lives!
