Motorists travelling north through the school speed zone outside Illawarra Grammar School have to travel through a school zone almost twice as long as southbound drivers.
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Travelling south along the Princes Highway, the 40km/h zone starts just past the Mount Keira Road intersection and finishes at the Princes Motorway on-ramp.
Heading north, the zone starts at that same location but motorists have to go through the double sets of lights at Mount Keira Road and Powell Street and then drive past the Fisher Street intersection before they can go faster than 40km/h.
That makes the northbound zone roughly 230-metres longer.
While the beginning and end of the zone is signposted, it does raise the possibility of a motorist getting caught for mistakenly thinking they’d already passed through the school speed zone.
The fines for speeding in a school zone start at $182 and two demerit points.
A spokesman from Roads and Maritime Services said the school zone on the Princes Highway at West Wollongong covered three schools – Wollongong West Public School, St Therese’s Primary and Illawarra Grammar.
For this reason it made sense to have a single school zone heading northbound.
‘‘Installing separate zones for these schools would create varying speed limits in a short distance and confuse motorists,’’ the spokesman said.
‘‘The school zone also protects students on Mount Keira Road, where motorists travel downhill and could go at higher speeds if the school zone wasn’t in place.’’
The spokesman said the length of school zones could be different in each direction.