Children walking to and from school face extremely dangerous situations with drivers who do not adhere to speed zones, follow safety signs and respect crossing guards. Thousands of children each day walk to school and face the challenges of drivers not respecting driving laws and the safety of children in and around school zones. There are hundreds of crossing guards in Duval County and they have an inherently dangerous job of keeping children safe. Teachers and other school personnel also share this responsibility to guide children safely across streets, into and out of vehicles and at times direct vehicular and bus traffic. Supplements to school crossing guards are teachers whose extra “school duty” includes bus and car duty. Before I continue let me make it perfectly clear that I’m not complaining about the extra duty that I volunteered for, to help students and parents that walk and drive their children to school. Many parents should be commended, no matter the weather conditions they make sure their children arrive to school. Parents walk, take public transportation, ride bicycles, take a taxis, and hitch rides just to make sure their child are attending school.

The Department of Transportation statistics show that, many more children are killed as pedestrians than on school buses so drivers need to be extra careful in school zones. There are circumstances that increasing amount of parents put their and other children in danger of death or injury by blatantly disregarding traffic rules, speed limits and safety signs. Having my duty station at the bus entrance, exit area at my school, my responsibilities include: students and parents cross safely, parents drive into the car loading and unloading zones not the bus zone and keeping walking zones for children clear as some parents like to drive through and directing buses to exit driveways. Some parents are intent on getting their child to school regardless of the dangers that they place them and children walking in. The U.S. Department of Transportation statistics shows that in 1998, 580 pedestrians ages 15 and under were killed and another 21,000 were injured nationally.

One-fifth of all traffic fatalities among people under age15 are pedestrians. Consistently the state of Florida is in the top 10 of pedestrian fatalities. Challenges that are seen include; parents allowing their children to exit the car in the middle of the street, parking in no loading and unloading zones, parents calling students to cross the street by themselves. There are situations that parents drive their vehicle into the bus loading and unloading zones to beat the bus and drop off their child trying to speed out ahead of buses. Parents even prompt their children to lie about their transportation or write false notes stating their child as a walker just to be released early so they can get into cars. There is frustration and sadness when I have spoken to mature parents about not stopping in the street to let their children out or not allowing their child to cross the street alone in busy traffic only to be cursed at, ignored or watch parents continue these actions, it is difficult for me to intervene because of threats. The most dangerous metropolitan areas for walking in Florida in 2002/2003 are Orlando, followed by Jacksonville, FL, Tampa, West Palm Beach, and Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, (Mean Streets 2004).

I wonder if it is my personal hygiene, color of my skin, the lack of JSO presence or just disrespect the reasons behind some parents not willing to follow traffic guidance. I can only assume it is human nature to continue this careless driving behavior until a child is seriously hurt or killed. I’m sure my life is of no importance to those parents that sling slurs, use profanity and hand gestures against me as I try to be professional and helpful. Asking parents to slow down in a school zone or to stop while children are escorted across the street to the safety of school, maybe because it is not their child they do not care.

"Children are not small adults," said NHTSA Administrator Ricardo Martinez, M.D. "They don't have the skills to handle traffic-related environments. A child versus a car is an unfair fight that the child always loses. Children rely on adults for safety." Thank you to the parents that do drive slowly in school zones and stop to let children cross streets, thank you to parents that give a friendly wave or a polite horn blow to say good morning or that we are doing a good job. Parents try to understand where ever you are going to drop your child off to school or pick them up, is it important enough to risk injuring or killing a child to get there? Think about it and be careful in school zones, lives are at stake.

Author   William Jackson, DCPS
william.jackson@EWC.EDU