It's been over a month and a half since the Town of Okotoks implemented their new 40 km/h speed by-law and it looks like motorists for the most part are taking it seriously.

Municipal Enforcement Manager Tim Stobbs says the main reason the by-law was suggested by Municipal Enforcement and approved by Okotoks Town Council was safety in residential areas making it safer for pedestrians.

"If we moved that down 40 km/h people are less apt to want to travel faster than 10 km/h so that gives us that 50 km/h which is probably still probably too fast for the area but what it does is reduce naturally that people speed over a period of time and changes their behavior," he says.

Stobbs says with drivers having time to adjust to the by-law through the main arteries of Okotoks he's noticed speeds have gone down.

"We're looking at tolerances of about 3-6 km/h over, we're looking at people easily comfortably traveling down the road without even know we're patrolling and we're seeing people well in compliance with the new law and I think that's acceptable in anyone's books."

When conducting a traffic leading up to the 40 km/h by-law Municipal Enforcement traveled both 50 and 40 km/h to see if there was a significant time difference from departure to arrival at their destination and Stobbs says they found that time wasn't a speed wasn't huge factor in getting somewhere quicker by 10 km/h.

"We found that the difference to travel the length between 50 and 40 km/h without taking into account school zones was something around 11 seconds, so if you don't have 11 seconds to save somebody's life I don't know what we'd have to do."

For an even closer look into the 40 km/h, check out the video below where The Eagle 100.9's Dan Bascombe and Gino De Paoli went on a ride along with Stobbs observing the traffic patterns in Okotoks.

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