As some of you may know, I work as a volunteer crossing guard and have been doing so for the last 5 years. Every afternoon, I head down to my daughter’s school, direct kids, parking and traffic. Usually takes about 30 minutes a day…I enjoy putting in my time, and have taken pride in the knowledge that I’ve done my part to make some sort of contribution and increase driver awareness/safety.
I keep things pretty well organized when doing this, (making scooters, cars and kindy buses park in designated areas) and it runs well. I had assumed that the morning volunteers, after years of watching me do it would follow suit.
I was wrong.
Wednesday at 11:30 I showed up and got ready for the onslaught of kids and cars (busiest day of the week). As soon as I arrived, the wreckage of a scooter could be seen right in front of the gate with two huge pools of semi-cleaned bloodstains in front of it. Evidently a couple of hours before, a woman in a hurry decided to ignore the rules and pulled up directly in front of the gate, dropped of her kid and pulled a U turn without looking. You know where this is going right?
The scooter was coming down the road after dropping her child off at the front entrance and slammed into the U-turning car at about 40kph. The passenger, another one of her kids, went up, over and landed straight on her head, suffering massive head trauma and a broken neck. She wasn’t wearing a helmet…
At around noon yesterday, she died.
This accident has so many idiotic elements…The crossing guards who allowed her to park there to begin with, the parent who couldn’t be bothered to park 50 feet up the street, the scooter mom carrying children with no helmets…In short, all of the things that made me volunteer to begin with. :fume: :fume: :fume: :fume: :fume:
As I performed my usual duties, it was hard not to notice the blood sticking to the bottom of my shoes…
This is a bit of a rant, but I’m really upset. I felt for years that I was setting an example that could be followed, and that the parents would appreciate the difference between the previous chaos and all of the safeguards I put into place to protect their children.
It’s obvious now that the second I take off my vest and put away my camera the system returns to it’s usual insanity and that everthing I did made absolutely no difference the second I left.
It meant nothing, and I was a fool to ever believe differently.
A child was taken for nothing more than 10 seconds of convenience…I want to f@#$#g scream :fume: