YELLOWKNIFE - Slow down. That's the message coming from Yellowknife's Municipal Enforcement division, as it finds itself giving out more and more maximum penalties to speeding Yellowknifers.

Const. Maciek Juszczyk with Municipal Enforcement shows the portable radar gear he uses to catch speeders around Yellowknife. Bylaw is warning Yellowknifers to slow down, as they have been giving out more "excessive" speeding tickets than ever. - Adam Johnson/NNSL photo Speeding fines in Yellowknife 1-15 km/h over -- $15 16-30 km/h over -- $75 31-50 km/h over --$100 More than 51 km/h -- mandatory court appearance

"We're generally getting about one a week now," said Doug Gillard, manager of Municipal Enforcement, who has been with the city since 1992.

"(In previous years) you'd see maybe one or two in the summertime in the populated areas."

The maximum penalty for speeding in Yellowknife is a mandatory court appearance, which can end in a $2,000 fine and a suspended licence, Gillard said. It's given out to drivers found going in excess of 50 kilometres per hour over the speed limit.

While the numbers of speeders have always gone up and down with the seasons, Gillard said more and more people are taking speed too far - inside and outside of the city.

"Speeding goes on everywhere in the city," Gillard said. "I don't know if there are any roads where we have not given out a ticket."

He estimates municipal enforcement gives out an average of 30 tickets a week now.

"I don't know what's driving this increase in high speed we're seeing," he said.

Speeding tickets are always more plentiful in the summertime, said Const. Maciek Juszczyk.

"As soon as the snow melts, people tend to speed up," he said.

He said he found Yellowknifers' penchant for speed particularly troubling on Highway 4, the winding, gravel-strewn path from Yellowknife to the Ingraham Trail.

Gillard said the fastest speed municipal enforcement has encountered in town was 115 km/hr in a 45 km/h zone. Outside of town, he said it was 134 km/h in a 70 km/h zone.

"The warning to those people is don't speed," Gillard said. "Speed is the biggest contributing factor to injuries and deaths on the road, and the faster you're going, the more likely you are to be injured or injure somebody else.

"The few seconds you gain getting from point A to point B are not worth it."