Crossing guards say they feel disrespected by motorists

In her 14 years as a Halifax-area crossing guard, Kim Carroll says she’s been ignored, spat on, harassed, and threatened — all in front of the children she’s supposed to protect.

Most days during the mornings, lunch hours, and afternoons, she works with a partner at the corner of Kearney Lake Road and Castle Hill Drive, trying to stem the flow of traffic so she can help shepherd children safely to a nearby school.

The best part of her job is the kids, she said.

“I’d rather get hit first before I let any of my babies get hit,” said Kim.

In recent years, however, she said her job is getting harder because motorists ignore her commands, largely communicated through a hand-held stop sign.

“The main thing is to get the kids back and forth to school without getting killed when they cross the street, because you have cars that won’t stop, not even for us,” she said.

“I get angry just about every day because people aren’t paying attention. They don’t think we do anything. It’s gotta stop.”

She said she’s noticed this problem getting worse over the years, and she believes it may be because cell phones have become more common, and more people may be on them while they’re driving.

Her husband of 27 years, Ted, has been working “on-and-off” as a crossing guard for the last 14 years as well, and he said he’s experienced similar issues when moving children across the road.

“We have to keep our future safe because these people have no regard,” he said.

“We have people going along the road with their Bluetooth headset in their ear, talking to whoever, and they’re driving along, but they’re not looking. They’re oblivious. All they have is tunnel vision.”

In January, a 74-year-old crossing guard was hit by a car and injured as he helped pedestrians cross Radcliffe Drive.

While unsafe drivers are the biggest problem, Ted and Kim said a general lack of respect for crossing guards is making their jobs even harder.

“Everybody says it’s the easiest job in the world, but it’s not,” said Ted.

“We’re the ones that stand out there, in all different weather, from freezing cold, rain, to really hot weather. We have cars sliding through your intersection when it’s slippery, or speeding through it, but they don’t think about us. We mean nothing,” said Kim.

“I’ve actually had people say, ‘why don’t you get a real job?’ Well, why don’t you stand out there for a day when it’s -25 with a windchill, and tell me it’s not a real job.”

Kim said there’s little recourse for crossing guards who want to make a complaint about unsafe drivers.

“We have to get a plate number, description of the car, make, model, colour, and description of the driver,” she said, explaining that in the moment, it can be difficult to look at and memorize all those features. “If we can’t pick the driver out, they throw it out.”

“Case dismissed,” added Ted.

A spokesperson for Halifax Regional Police — which oversees the city’s crossing guard program — said crossing guards in training always get an overview of safety procedures on the job.

He said crossing guards get an initial training shift, then an additional eight hours of training every August.

“What we always kind of remind them is that, like with any work, if there’s any kind of circumstance where they feel there’s a safety issue at all, they can call 911 and certainly, we’ll come and deal with that,” said Cst. John MacLeod.

The president of the union which represents over 100 crossing guards around Halifax said more light needs to be shed on the issue.

CUPE Local 4814 president Glenna Casavechia she’d like to see crossing guards carry cameras to help them keep track of the cars who disregard their instructions. She said some crossing guards in the U.K. use them.

“If we had those, and if the people knew that, I think they would slow down a little bit,” she said.

“It’s very hard for us to catch a licence plate and then have to identify the car, and the driver. It gets a little too complicated, because mostly we just want to stop the children from running out.”

For Ted and Kim, all they’d like to see is more awareness of crossing guards and the work they do.

“The city needs to start running messages, like the public safety ads they used to run on TV,” said Ted. “Do them for crosswalks.”

Kim added: “It’s got to get safer. Because something tragic is going to happen one of these days if it doesn’t.”