The Police Department is asking that you familiarize yourselves with Crossing Guard/Crosswalk laws and obey them. It will help keep our schools organized and are for the sake of everyone's safety.
Exercise common courtesy and wait for the Crossing Guard. Let others pull out of parking spaces so traffic can flow - you can pull in and pick up your children at the pick-up areas more quickly. Also, please do not stop in the street and impede traffic when you can’t pull into a parking lot. Please go around the block and come back. This will allow traffic to flow. Train your children to wait for you to pull to the curb before loading. Explain that if you are unable to pull into the pick-up lot because it’s full, you will be going around the block and coming back to pick them up, so they don’t worry.
Traffic flows better if parents park on the street until a few minutes after they hear the dismissal bell, and then drive through the pickup lot to look for their children. If their children aren’t there, they should go around the block and come back. This allows other parents to come in, pick up their children, and leave. This maximizes the number of parents picking up their children in the minimum amount of time.
Remember that it is often quicker to park on the street, walk in, pick up your child, and walk out, than to get caught up in the congestion in the drop-off lots. It can save you several minutes, and often a lot of stress and frustration.
Crossing Guard Etiquette
DRIVERS: Stop for stop sign and remained stopped until the crossing guard steps onto the sidewalk.
This makes sure that a child, unseen to the driver and crossing guard, doesn’t run into the crosswalk and get hit.
- It also allows for the safety of the crossing guard.
- If the car starts to go, it leaves everyone wondering if the driver is going to hit a pedestrian or the crossing guard.
- Think about it, would you like someone trying to drive through the crosswalk while you were in it, or were crossing with your children? What if one of your kids turned around and ran back to the other side of the street because they forgot something in front of this moving car? Would they be hit?
- Remember 2815 cvc above requires you to remain stopped until the Crossing Guard and children reach a point of safety (the sidewalk).
PEDESTRIANS: If you’re crossing in the crosswalk, wait on the sidewalk for the Crossing Guard to stop traffic and tell you its safe to cross in the crosswalk. Remember the Crossing Guard is there for your safety.
- The Crossing Guard is trying to cross you and the children and still allow for traffic to get through.
- Remember that your children will follow your example of obeying or disobeying the Crossing Guard.
- Don’t teach your children to cross in the middle of the street. Teach them to cross in the crosswalk with the Crossing Guard.
- Remember 2815 cvc above requires you and your children to obey the Crossing Guards direction.
TRAFFIC LAWS FOR LOCAL SCHOOLS
- 2815 cvc: Stop for Crossing Guard stop sign: Requires vehicles to stop and remain stopped for the Crossing Guard stop sign while the Crossing Guard is crossing students and until the Crossing Guard returns to a place of safety (the sidewalk. Remember to treat the Crossing Guard stop sign like a construction stop sign). It also requires motorists and pedestrians to obey the directions of the Crossing Guard. (Wait on the sidewalk until pedestrians are told it is safe to cross. Cars to wait when directed by the Crossing Guard until told it is okay to go.)
- 21950a cvc: Pedestrian right of way in crosswalk: Failure to yield the right of way to a pedestrian in a crosswalk.
- 21950b cvc: Pedestrian yield right of way to vehicles so close as to be hazard: Failure of a pedestrian to yield the right of way to a vehicle approaching that is so close as to be a hazard. (A vehicle is still required to yield to a pedestrian, but a pedestrian can’t run up to the crosswalk and run out in front of the car at the last minute so the car isn’t able to stop.)
- 21970a cvc: Blocking crosswalks and sidewalks with a vehicle: No person shall stop a vehicle unnecessarily in a manner that causes a vehicle to block a marked or unmarked crosswalk or sidewalk.
The following are traffic laws that relate to the Crossing Guard, as well as some etiquette issues and general traffic laws relevant to the local schools.