It wasn't a good start to the school year for a couple thousand drivers across the province.

Nearly 2,000 people in Saskatchewan failed to make a passing grade while driving in a school zone during September.

SGI released those figures earlier this week as part of their spotlight focus on school zone safety.

"I don't want to say it's alarming," Tyler McMurchy, manager of media relations with SGI, said about the traffic violations. "But it is definitely something that we would like to see that number continuing to shrink rather than grow."

The spotlight numbers regressed this year to 449 tickets issued by officers, down from over 600 last year. Photo speed enforcement caught 1,542 culprits - nearly half as many as 2016 when there were over 2,700.

"That's one positive from this - we're seeing fewer than we have in the previous years," McMurchy noted. "So hopefully people are learning that they shouldn't be driving at an excessive rate of speed in school zones. However, there were still over 1,900 people ticketed in school zones."

Another number that was higher than usual according to SGI was 549 tickets for distracted driving with 417 of them for using a cellphone while driving.

"Distracted driving does tend to range from the high 300's to well over 500 (per month), so 549 tickets for distracted driving is on the high side," he said.

One number that has been slightly decreasing in the past couple of months is the amount of impaired-driving-related offences at 277 for the ninth month of the year.

"The most important indication of impaired driving is going to be the number of collisions, injuries, and fatalities that impaired driving causes," McMurchy explained. "We won't have the best idea of whether impaired driving is going up or down until we review the yearly traffic statistics."

SGI also said 392 tickets were issued for inappropriate or no seatbelt/child safety seat and 4,445 tickets for speeding were handed out.