people/objects, but recently my driving has caught the attention of school crossing guards.
I live in a heavy populated area with tons of schools divided into three categories; elementary, middle, and high school. Each one of those categories has more then a handful of schools attached to it and with that comes buses and school crossing zones. One cannot drive in the mornings from 6:00 to 9:30 without coming upon these things. Of course, each crossing zone is different depending on the traffic pattern, the area, and the guards. On the route I take to school I pass through six crossing zones alone.
Toward the end of last year as I was coming home with Madison in the car I came to zone #4 which is at a medium busy intersection. I say medium because while the main road is heavily packed with cars the intersecting road is not. I turn right on to the intersecting road, and I was in the right hand lane when the light turned red and I stopped. The crossing guard was standing on the corner next to my car. The orange cones were on each side of the curb and in the middle of the two lane road to signal a school zone. I was the first car in line and so I went through the motions a good driver does when in a right turn lane. I looked right, left, and right again. I never moved my vehicle forward, but suddenly the crossing guard started blowing his whistle. He turned to me and stuck his hand up in a stopping motion. There were no kids anywhere to be seen, and I wasn't moving, but the guard acted like I was about to commit a heinous crime. He blew the whistle again and kept putting his hand out as if he were one of the Supremes singing, Stop in the Name of Love. Then he just yelled, his face all contorted, but I had the windows up and the radio playing and couldn't understand what it was he was saying. I gave him a thumbs up to let him know I wasn't moving. He then proceeded to cross the street to retrieve the cone on the curb. He turned around, gave me the hand again and blew his whistle, walked back across the street, picking up the cone in the middle of the street., to finally arrive back where he had started next to my vehicle. His shift was over. When he reached the side he turned and motioned for me to carry on. I was afraid of the guy the rest of the year.
My next issue came at zone #1 which, in returning home, comes not long after that zone I just passed through. It is on the less heavily traveled road and is not at an intersection at all, but on a walking and biking trail. This crossing guard does not have the stress the intersection guards have and no matter his stories I will always believe that. There is very little foot traffic and for the most part traffic usually stops whenever we spy any walker or biker waiting to cross. I can honestly say that I was talking to the passengers in my car as I came to the first cone in the median which had a flag sticking out of the top of the cone that said, "15 miles an hour". I, not paying attention, began stopping the car as if it were a stop sign. The sign was still 10 feet from the next cone and the crossing zone, and when I realized that there was no stop sign I pushed on the gas. I did not gun the gas. I did not blow past everyone. How fast can someone go when there are cars in front of him? Apparently, I was still going too fast for the crossing guard. He began yelling at me to slow down. Slow down! He put his hands out in front of him, palms down, and began pushing them downward in an attempt to show me what he wanted just in case I wasn't understanding him. It scared me, especially as he stepped out into the crossing as if he were going to leap in front of my car. His face was all contorted as well and he gave me a quick lecture about school zones and speed as I crept past him. I, of course, gave him my thumbs up. Now I'm afraid of him.
Yesterday was altercation #3 and hopefully the last one. This one was certainly my fault, but the way the guard handled it was over the top, something I've come to find is in their nature. The high school is on a main, very populated, dangerous, six lane street that runs north and south. I am always in awe of these two crossing guards who have to walk out into the intersection to stop traffic. The female guard who stands on the school side is very good. I am always praising her and the job she does because I have seen her in action. She is determined that no one will be hurt. In the mornings it is pitch black outside and they only have orange vests and a sign that lights up to spell stop. The school is old, celebrating its one hundred year this year, and so the entrance is not designed for how the way the future has grown. The entrance is before the light which slows down things immensely. You enter the entrance to the school in one lane. You can break off into two lanes after entering, which people do, but because there is handicap parking on that side in the middle of the entrance if someone is parked there that lane has to try to merge back into the first lane. You move on around the front of the school, and as you make a slight turn to the left the lane moves into two lanes so that by the time you come to the light you have a right lane and a left lane for exiting. It is a horseshoe with the entry and exit divided by a grassy area. A crosswalk goes from one to the other and the female guard has responsibility for that area as well as the busy one.
I was in the right lane waiting to turn right into the school. An orange cone was in the cross walk blocking the area that is normally the main lane into the school which meant cars had to maneuver around the cone to shoot back to the curb to let kids off. That line moves very slowly in the morning and is one of the reasons why my kids take the bus. I inched forward as the line moved until I was second in line to turn. An SUV was in front of me so that my view was blocked from seeing anything in front of him. It was pitch black. As he moved around the cone, he got into the second lane and since he kept moving I began my turn. My intention was not to follow him, but to get into the main lane near the curb. I rounded the cone when he slammed on his brakes. The car in front of him had stopped because several feet in front of it was a car trying to merge from the main lane into the left lane. The traffic light was red so naturally that puts everyone in the school on hold from moving. I had to stop which left the back end of my van in the cross walk. Traffic in the car lane had been moving at a steady pace when the two of us made the turn so the fact that the car in front of him slammed on his brakes was not our fault. I sat through one light and only moved an inch forward. Naturally it was at this time that kids appeared in the crosswalk to cross. I kept inching forward so that they wouldn't have to move so far around me, but I guess that wasn't good enough for the crossing guard.
Now, I am not a guard, but if I were I think I would have come up to the van window and gently knocked. Then when the driver lowered the window I would have calmly said, "Please make sure that the car in front of you is clearly through the entrance before you make your turn so that the cross walk is not blocked." How hard would that have been? Instead she appeared out of the dark (my eyes were looking forward) to my left and began banging on my van like a crazy person. All three of us jumped. She kept banging as she worked her way up to my window where she stood outside it yelling at me, her face contorted. "You can't block the crosswalk! Ever! That is a crosswalk. You saw those kids and you turned anyway." She said more things but it was hard to hear through the window, which I can never remember how to lower, but was trying desperately to do so that I could apologize to my heroine. She spewed some more anger and then the line moved and so I mouthed I was sorry, gave her my thumbs up sign, and got through into the entrance. Scared the crap out of all of us.
I let the girls out and slowly made my way around the horseshoe to get into the right lane to exit. The light turned green, but then red just as I got to the intersection. I stopped and looked right, left, right. I saw that the left turn lane heading south had the green light and so I edged out to make my turn. As I began my turn that darn crossing guard, who I think was just waiting for me, blew her whistle and began to hold up her lighted stop sign to cross the intersection. For me to slam on my brakes would have left me smack dab in the middle once again. So I made the turn and sped off. I shook the entire time I worked out at the gym and burned more calories then I have in a long time.
Okay, now I understand that crossing guards have terrible responsibilities. I understand that they have to compete with radios and drivers who don't pay attention, and god knows what else. But I also think that they have to remember what it is like behind the wheel for the drivers who have to pay attention to them, kids, red and green lights, and the cars in front of them. I take full responsibility for my actions. I have made it my mission to drive even more carefully then I think I already do. I am making sure my attention is sorely focused on the road and my surroundings. But these guards have got to stop scaring people. They have got to watch the cars as well as the lights and understand that sometimes good people make stupid moves.
Madison: "Well, just think. You've moved away from the mail industry now."
Oh, boy. Maybe I do belong down here with the driving grandparents.
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