Teaching children about road safety in local schools not only gives Constable Scott Seutter of the Sidney North Saanich RCMP a sense of satisfaction but it has also earned him three awards in as many months.
This fall, Seutter will be presented with a Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal in recognition of his excellence in traffic education and community service. He will also be honoured for being the top traffic enforcement officer and top traffic education officer by the B.C. Association of Chiefs of Police (BCACP).
“I’m honoured to be receiving these awards,” Seutter said. “Being recognized by the BCACP is really something unexpected because the other awards they hand out are for traffic units, which is a whole team, and the awards are open to all police, municipal and RCMP, so to be recognized as an individual is really special.”
Seutter, who has been with the Sidney North Saanich RCMP for the last four years (prior to that he was stationed in Campbell River), spends most of his days enforcing traffic on the Saanich Peninsula, and most residents recognize him for his wheels, he said.
“I get recognized a lot because I drive the ghost SUV, so people know I do a lot of traffic enforcement but often don’t realize I do a lot of education as well.”
Seutter, a trained collision analyst with the RCMP, began teaching road safety in local schools a few years ago. Now he co-teaches with Lorne Chan, the Grade 11 law teacher at Parkland Secondary School, on average of once a month, helping to educate teens on the importance of traffic safety and the rules of the road.
“It’s always been a passion of mine to get in touch with the kids and teach them hands on,” Seutter said. “I find it very reawarding to mix the traffic work with the educational work because it gives a balance and diversity to my job that I enjoy.”
Seutter added his presence in the classrooms of the teens also gives him the opportunity to touch on the importance of being safe on the roads and the consequences that can result from making poor choices.
“Because I work as a collision analyst, I go to too many scenes where I see youth injured or killed because they made a bad decision,” he said.
“That’s why I like to get in there with the kids, talk to them, educate them and provide them with information on impaired driving, seatbelt use, texting while driving and that kind of thing.
“If I can have a positive influence on one or two youth a day I think that’s serving the community well.”
Aside from his work in traffic enforcement and teaching at Parkland, Seutter also spends time working with some of the younger residents on the Peninsula.
“At the elementary school level I do bike rodeos and talk about bike safety with the kids. It’s just so much fun to be with them, they are so wide eyed and interested in everything and have so many stories to tell,” Seutter laughed.
The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal will be presented to Seutter Oct. 4 and the medals from the BCACP will be presented to him Nov. 21.