To think that if there's a school crossing patrol...

[BreconBeBuggered]

...that cover should be provided if the lollipop man/woman is absent? The road outside DS2's school is quite busy, but is a residential street and until recently wasn't considered eligible for a patrol at all. It's worked really well and it's obviously a lot easier to get across the road than before. What surprised me was that nobody covers the shift if he can't manage it due to illness. Which means that parents can't actually send their older DC to walk to school by themselves knowing that someone will be there to supervise the road crossing. At DS1's primary school, there was always cover for absence, but maybe this isn't normal. AIBU? Was I just spoiled at the last school?

Hi, I know about this subject only too well, having worked in a Road Safety department within a local council a few years back. My understanding of it is, if there's a lollipop person in a certain area then the council have deemed that this particular area needs one in order to ensure the children are safe. So if the regular person is absent for whatever reason then cover should be provided and councils should have casual workers to do so. Unfortunately this doesn't always happen because of lack of funding/people to cover etc etc. My advice to you is to phone your local councils road safety department to ask if cover is provided. In my experience if cover isn't provided and parents enquire then they're more likely to get their backsides in gear and do something about it. If there was to be an accident at that site then the council would be up sh*t creek without a paddle. Hope this helps!!

I'm sure when I was at primary school (scarilly going back as many as 20 years now!) whenever the lollipop lady was off there was a policeman to help children across the road. This was a busy main road with no traffic lights (there are lights now) that a child was knocked down on every few years so maybe a higher priority than in a residential area. It was such a treat for us at that age to see a police officer there in uniform to cross the road with - it would be now for entirely different reasons

Well I agree but all our Lollipop people ard for the chop so I don't fancy your chances of getting cover.

What are the criteria for qualifying for a striped crossing (lollipop lady or not)?

I assume there will be other parents there with their younger children, who are crossing them over. So as long as you can trust your children to cross with another parent, that is no different to trusting them to cross when the lollipop person is there. IMO.

Yes it's true, policemen are supposed to be called to step in if no cover is available.

I've started to take the help crossing the road for granted and am surprised to see cars coming at me from behind the parked vans when there's nobody to see us across. And I'm allegedly an adult.