One of my jobs is as a crossing guard, and while it is a relatively easy and flexible job for a college student like me, it does have its downsides. One particular issue is people who do not obey traffic laws. Anyone who runs a red light/stop sign will get their license plate number written down and handed off to the Sheriffs department (I don’t know exactly what they do about that, but if a cop nearby knows about certain ‘repeat offenders’ it would be pretty easy for the cop to catch them in the act if he knew who to look for).
Some days it seems like I’m invisible, no matter how much gaudy yellow vest I’m wearing, no matter how much sign waving, whistle blasting, frantic screams of “STOP! dammit!” when some idiot is blithely about to plow into a stream of kids while meekly shrugging at me or waving (WTF ARE YOU WAVING AT ME FOR? YOU ARE NOT MY FRIEND! :mad: ).
Occasionally, there are moments of justice. Last year I complained about constantly being in danger of run over because I swear when people see me its like they speed up and cause me to leap out of the way to avoid being hit. One such culprit pulled this when a cop was around the corner. He got stopped and the cop was screaming at him over it.
This was vindicating, but at the time, in some petty, immature way, I wanted to make faces at the guy behind the cop’s back while he was getting chewed out, or do some sort of happy dance, or just some acknolegement of , “HA, you got caught and I hope you get in deep shit for nearly running me over!” But on the other hand, this is probably in really bad form. What do you think?
People don’t care. They’re clueless when it comes to driving.
A fire at the local parochial school had traffic screwed up. I was running a pumper, and watched a Sergeant try to flag down a driver who was wholly obtuse to the situation, until Buck hurled his flashlight into the guy’s windshield.
The fellow then made mistake #2 by leaping out and charging the officer, along with shouted profanity.
Officer=1, Idiot=0
I feel your pain incubus along with that “YEAH” feeling when a meathead gets their due.
Wow, great story! Wish I could’ve been there to help dogpile the guy that tried to start shit with the Sergeant. A while back a fellow crossing guard was beat up by some ex-con who had nothing better to do than to jump out of his truck and start punching a couple of sixty-year old men :mad: stuff like that really makes my blood boil; I’m young and strong enough to stand up for myself; I only wished I could’ve kicked that guy’s ass.
I wish I could write the message on my Stop sign “PEOPLE WHO DRIVE PAST THIS GUARD WILL GET THEIR CARS KEYED” while waving a handful of keys in the opposite fist in a menacing manner. Yeah buddy, I see you inching toward me…go ahead and try it! :mad:
There was an old-lady-type crossing guard on the street in front of a computer store where I worked. This school crossing was across a six-lane major street and had no light - but it did have flashing “25mph” school zone lights.
Her STOP sign was thin steel, and she had no problem whacking obnoxious cars’ fenders with it, edge on.
One day I asked her about it, and she said she didn’t care if she ever got into trouble for it, as she supposed the worst thing the authorities would do to her was take away her job (volunteer - no pay), and for anyone to complain they’d basically have to admit they recklessly ignored a school crossing guard’s instructions.
Or, as she then put it, “They can sue me for my social security check - I’m 78 and I’ll be dead before they’d ever collect it.”
I drove a school bus for too many years to support my family when I was going through college. There weren’t too many things which would make my blood boil, but drivers who ran the FLASHING RED LIGHTS ON THE STOP SIGN were one of them. Do they not realize that children are getting on or off the bus??? Ask any school bus driver what they’re worst fear is, and they’ll tell you “a kid getting hit”, either by a bus or another driver.
Drivers are told to get the license plate number of the offending vehicle, however, when I pulled up at a stop, and ten, twelve or twenty elementary students got off the bus and scattered, the last thing I was planning in doing is scribbling down a license plate number. (Gotta watch those kids, donchaknow. They’re like baby spiders.)
If got too bad, I worked for a school district that was pretty good about asking the local police department to place an officer at the location where “runs” were typical. Of course, that only deters idiots about as long as the police car is visible.
I usually drive like a madman, but I have a certain awe and respect when it comes to authorities and kids. I will dutifully pull over if a police car, ambulance, firetruck, or other emergency vehicle comes sirening past. I will slow down in school zones when I should. And I always stop to let kids cross the road. If there is a school bus, I am extra wary lest, chas v’shalom, I do something stupid. If a school bus is stopped and flashing, I gladly stop. It’s about the kids, y’know. I love kids.
And people who’re so oblivious to this - well, they’re jerks of the worst kind.
I liked the woman who whacked cars. That’s a great idea.
WRS - I’ll send a horde of Orks after anyone who even so much as thinks about endangering a kid.
I know of one blind man who has a nice trick. He’ll stand at the kerb at a pedestrian crossing (where, in Britain, drivers are required to stop for waiting pedestrians), with his white stick held up almost vertical, pointing out very visibly above the road. Any car that drives past gets a huge whack on the roof from said stick.
My great-aunt was a crossing guard for a while when she was younger and some guy drove right past and almost hit these kids when she motioned for him to stop, she had one of those like stop sign things on a stick but it was metal like the real ones and she hurled that thing at his car and broke out his back window(back windshield?).
I think making faces at a stopped driver is wonderfully restrained, given the other options mentioned. I live a block and a half from our middle school and three blocks from the elementary, and I’ve been sorely tempted to go out and stand at the School Zone signs with a baseball bat, to see if I could slow down just one of the lousy jerks.
The thing that really, really gets me steaming about this is that the worst offenders aren’t the reckless teen drivers; it’s the soccer moms who’ve just dropped off their own children (or are about to do so). Their attitude seems to be, “MY child is the only one who counts; I don’t give a damn about whether yours lives or dies.”
I think it’s more accurate to say their attitude is “I have filled my life with so much inane bullshit in order to distract me from thinking about how sad my life has become that I’m too busy to think about what is in front of me”
