This morning, taking the youngest to school, reaching a junction which flows freely on the main road until the lights change in our favour. The lights go red for us and the main road traffic starts again and flows very nicely. Our lights go green and one car gets round before the lights change again until the process is repeated, many, many, many times.
Confused I get to the junction and realise that the lollipop person is stopping the traffic in sync' with the main road traffic lights thus preventing the traffic joining the main road from feeding more than one car per change onto it!
Get to the little village where school is and decide to take pretty route back down country lanes. Entering town, with no other cars in sight, another lollipop person (a troll-like creation in a yellow jacket hereafter know as 'lollytroll') has to run to get in front of me so they can let one child cross. They have to wait for about five seconds before the child has even made the grass that edges the road and the whole process takes about twelve seconds from beginning to end. Then, having crossed the child, lollytroll stops and waits for a woman who has appeared from the alleyway, and as she joins lollytroll they beging to chat as they cross.
Don't the council (or whoever it is that licences these vexations to the spirit) ever think of teaching them about traffic flow, looking at what cars are approaching (during the time I was stopped, I was the only car on my side of the road and the oncoming traffic was about five seconds away when lollytroll got out of the road!!!) and balancing the needs of crossing with the needs to keep the traffic (and perhaps stress) levels down as well?
I have watched lollytroll on a number of occasions. It has a habit of crossing one child, then returning and crossing another immediately after the first, sometimes with the passage of but one car before repeating the process. Walking past a while back, I asked why they didn't 'gather' a few kids and take them across so that there were a few kids crossed with but one stop. The response was that they didn't want them waiting in case they decided to run across without them!
As a supporter of assisted crossings I found this morning funny in that I hadn't realised that they were perhaps as much of a pain as others I know have claimed. Guess I don't usually do the journey so haven't noticed (or was I just fortunate to see two poor examples this morning and they were having an off day?_.
Hey Ho!
2 comments:
We have a school crossing patrol just down the street from us. He has been there for nearly 20 years and is highly efficient.
He takes his role seriously, but also considers traffic flow and holds back groups of pedestrians until he sees a gap in the traffic flow which he can safely step out and stop.
Perhaps he could be a mentor for your people. Do your council pay consultants fees?
Given the current financial situation they'd probably charge!
I was surprised because the lollipop outside my kid's school is mindful of traffic flow, as generally were the others I have got to know.
Hey ho!
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