Police Looking for a Few Good Volunteer Crossing Guards

by | Oct 8, 2017

The program comes in response to safety concerns for children walking to school.

The crosswalk at Allen Drive on Middle Road.

One of the complaints that arose in September after the school district cut the Cole bus for students in the Hill and Harbor neighborhoods was that cars repeatedly blow through crosswalks even when a person is waiting to cross. By law, if a person is standing at a crosswalk, cars are obligated to stop so the person may cross.

The district chose to eliminate that bus because students in those neighborhoods are within a 1.5-mile radius of the school and when looking at bus routes last year, the district decided to more strictly enforce walking distances. (For the elementary schools the distance is 1 mile, for the middle school, it’s 1.5 mile; and for the high school, it’s 1.75 miles.) But parents from the Hill and Harbor neighborhoods weren’t the only ones to complain about dangerous crosswalks. The crosswalks on Middle Road were also singled out by parents of younger children who walk to Hanaford.

School officials decided to bring the issue to the town, noting that street safety was ultimately a town issue.

The immediate result is a volunteer crossing guard program run by EG police. The EGPD will train and organize the volunteers. The trainings will take four hours and first two dates are Thursday, Oct. 12, at 8:30 a.m., and Wednesday, Oct. 18, at 3:10 p.m. Volunteers will need to complete a background check (BCI). Police will provide the vests. Here’s where you can sign up to volunteer.

Which crosswalks will be staffed with the volunteers has yet to be determined and will depend on how many people sign up to volunteer. Crosswalks on Middle Road and First Avenue have been the ones mentioned most often by parents.

Police Chief Stephen Brown acknowledged Friday that drivers often pass through crosswalks even when a pedestrian is waiting to cross, but he said that pedestrians need to follow basic rules too.

As a pedestrian, Brown said, “I’m supposed to come up to the crosswalk. I’m supposed to visually acknowledge the driver. As soon as they acknowledge me, that car is supposed to stop. Each party has their own job to do.”

Parent Danielle Ditraglia has spent a lot of time at crosswalks on Middle Road – her two children need to cross Middle to get to Hanaford and Cole. (Check out her Middle Road crosswalk videos here.) She is not a fan of the new volunteer plan.

“I think it’s a terrible idea,” she said Friday. “I think it opens up the town to huge liabilities, as well as the individual people who are volunteering. I also think that by making these positions volunteer there is going to be a large problem with attendance and consistency. It is a completely rash Band-Aid-type solution to a huge problem.”

Some on Facebook were more enthusiastic about it.

“Great news for our kids and the entire EG community!” wrote Joy Richter Weisbord. “Where I grew up, older kids served as ‘safeties’ for the younger kids and it created a very positive feeling in the community that we were all looking out for each other.”

EG resident Ben Revkin (who teaches Latin at the high school) was more circumspect. “A Band-Aid, but definitely better than nothing,” he said.

If you want to sign up, click on this link.

– Elizabeth F. McNamara

Value the news you get here on East Greenwich News? As a 501-c3, we depend on reader support. Become a sustaining (monthly) donor or make a one-time donation! Click on the Donate button below or send a check to EG News, 18 Prospect St., East Greenwich, RI 02818. Thanks.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

2 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Alan Clarke
Alan Clarke
October 10, 2017 8:49 am

In 1950, as a fifth grade crossing guard from Eldredge School at the corner of Friendship and Main, I got to leave class ten minutes early and meet a policeman at the corner. Crossing guards got a badge, a canvas strap over our chests, and just a wee bit of authority. We also got a trip to Fenway Park.
Crossing guards are not new to East Greenwich and neither is walking to school. I know how to cross Main Street today because I learned to do so safely as a child. These are lessons learned early in life that carry you well in later years. There are a lot of things you learn early when you actually get out of the house.
One thing that is new, the excessive speed and rude, self-occupied drivers. The me-firsters. There were fewer cars and the drivers did not race through intersections and over crosswalks as they do today.
Crossing guards are good. Obviously they will be adults in today’s scenario and they probably won’t get to go to see the Red Sox.

Jeff Stevens
Jeff Stevens
October 10, 2017 9:30 pm

If this is a legit request, I certainly trust that it means the Bus Monitors are also volunteers otherwise there would be a double standard.
What would be just as useful would be having volunteers to stand at the corner of Main St. and First Ave. and Main St. and Division St. to take pictures of and/or record license plate info of cars that run the red lights there.

RELATED STORIES

Newsletter Sign Up

* indicates required

Archives

Latest Streaming