Crosswalks exist for a reason

By Christian Price, News9.com INsite Team

There are crosswalks outside my son's school and apparently half the metro doesn't seem to understand why they're there.

Every morning my son and I join the waves of children trying to cross the street to get to school. There are two crosswalks provided for us to utilize at our own discretion. I use the term ‘discretion' because it seems everybody plays by different rules.

Many times children wait for the oncoming traffic to yield so that they may cross safely through the designated area, but it never happens. People, obviously not observing the posted speed limit, constantly drive straight through, on their phones, as if no one else is even around.

There is a young mother, with a baby and a school-aged-child, who has to cross the corridor daily. They have almost been hit by careless drivers at least five times.

A teacher, acting as a crossing guard, stands and tries to direct traffic at the crosswalk within the schools parking lot. She almost gets hit daily. As soon as somebody drops their kids off, they pull out quickly from the line of cars, still on their cell phone, and then stomps the gas as if the whole process was an inconvenience in their life. That's when they almost run over the crossing guard.

What I don't understand is, it has been the same process, at the same location, at the same time since day one. Where is the problem? What's hard to understand? There is a lady standing in front of you, wearing a hunters orange reflective vest, holding a large red stop sign. Isn't this self explanatory?

Tomorrow, my son and I will join our fellow traffic darters. The mother and her two children and the crossing guard will be ready to battle in the morning mist once again. There will also be hordes of children within arm's reach of pretty cars speeding past.

I wonder if the children know what a wrist rocket is.