Driving Tips > Safety Columns
It’s time to honour school patrols
It’s Road Safety Week next week, a good time to pay homage to a system that has been helping save lives for 70 years.
Drivers have a role
The
School Patrol system is celebrating its 70th anniversary in Winnipeg as an
organized effort to get children to and from school through ever-busier traffic.
It’s also a good time to remember that drivers have to work with school
patrols to ensure the kids’ safety.
School patrols are on hand when students are on their way to and from school and at lunch time, not so much to control traffic but more to control the kids.
“They wait for a gap in the traffic, or until drivers voluntarily stop, and only then do they step into the crosswalk to help the kids across,” says Lou Gervino, manager of Driver Education at Manitoba Public Insurance. “Good drivers help the school patrols out. They keep their foot on the brake until the kids have reached the opposite curb and the patrol steps out of the crosswalk.”
Lou, who appears daily in The 60-Second Driver on CTV, reminds drivers that their responsibility doesn’t end there.
“If you see a school patrol at a crosswalk, it means there are probably lots of kids in the neighbourhood,” he says. “Their behaviour can be unpredictable, so it makes sense for drivers to exercise extra caution.
“Drive cautiously at all times – and take a moment to thank our school patrols. They have been helping keep our kids safe since 1936, and will continue to do so for years to come.”
For more information, watch The 60-Second Driver on CTV, or visit the following sections on this website:
- School Patrols in The 60-Second Driver
- School Patrols in the Road Safety Section
- You can access a 60-Second video on School Patrols directly
