If you teach your child nothing else

NicoleR524

Please teach them to look both ways before crossing the street.

Twice now, in the past couple months, I have almost hit children crossing the street near my husbands school.  When I work, we drive to his school and then I take the car and Owen to our school.  Of course, I'm overly cautious when driving near a school but both times children have walked in front of my car when I had the right of way and if I hadn't been paying extra close attention, I would have hit them. 

The first time, I had a green light, they had the red don't walk sign, and they just walked right out into the street, carrying on a converstation without even looking. 

This morning, a group of kids were standing on a corner talking, I was making a right turn. I waited because I thought they were crossing.  When they didn't move after a good minute, I started to make the turn.  JUST as they were in my blind spot, they started walking.  They never even looked. 

It makes me sick to my stomach to 1. think of what would have and almost did happen.  and 2. that so many idiots out there do not drive carefully and what would have most certainly happened if it was one of them in those situations.  and 3. now as a parent, I think about the parents of those children and the pain I would feel if something happened to Owen. 

My 5 year old cousin was hit and killed by a drunk driver in front of her house.  This was not her fault, the guy shouldn't have been driving.  But, teaching children about street/car safety is super high on my parenting priority list, even more so after these two occurances.

a.bartholomew

I would call the school and let them know.  Not as a complaint but as a "heads up, this may be something you want to address".  Although, if it's HS I doubt they will but as a former middle school teacher-they might.

NicoleR524

a.bartholomew:

I would call the school and let them know.  Not as a complaint but as a "heads up, this may be something you want to address".  Although, if it's HS I doubt they will but as a former middle school teacher-they might.

After the first instance, I called my husband crying and told he'd better march right into the principals office and tell him to make some sort of announcement to all the kids.  He told me that the principal probably wouldn't do that because there are so many kids and no real way of addressing them all.  Working in a small private school, it would have been handled very differently at my school.  But he's in a city public school and I guess its not something they address like that.  I will be telling him about what happened today and ask that he at least present the idea of a safety assembly to his principal.

 

leighzlou

Along the same lines, teaching kids about bike riding safety too when they are old enough to ride a bike alone.  Teach them that they are supposed to still follow the rules of the road like staying on the right, stop signs, etc. I was driving with my husband and he almost hit a kid on a bike who was riding on the left side of the road and crossed right in front of him as he was turning left. My husband had stopped at the stop sign and checked both ways, but you don't really check the left side of the road on your right side because those cars/bikes aren't supposed to be heading towards you.