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A Crossing guard is a traffic management specialist who is normally stationed on busy roadways to aide pedestrains. Often associated with elementary school children, crossing guards cross temporarily stop the flow of traffic so pedestrains may cross an intersection. Crossing guards are known by a vareity of names, to include "Crossing Guard", "Traffic Monitor", and "School crossing patroller".
United States
No universal regulations exist that describe who may be a crossing guard, where crossing guards are stationed, or for what purposes a crossing guard may be employed. This person may be paid or volunteer; the person may be a school employee, a member of local law enforcement, a city employee, or contracted privately. Many elementary school crossing guards are assisted by older students, known by a variety of titles such as "safety monitor" and "safety patrol."
Crossing guards, except those who are duly sworn public safety officers, have no arrest powers, cannot write tickets, and can only forward the license plate numbers and other descriptors of alleged violators to local law enforcement, who will decide what to do with that information; results may range from nothing at all to a verbal warning to a written summons and fine.
Similar procedures exist in most areas for school bus drivers, who may observe motorists disobeying the bus stop arm or flashing lights usually displayed when children are exiting the bus.
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom and Australia a school crossing patroller is colloquially known as a lollipop man or lollipop woman/lady because of the modified circular stop sign they carry, which resembles a large lollipop. It has the word STOP, an international symbol for children, and a strip of black.
They are employed by local authorities, but there is a greater degree of standardisation of the system than in the US. They are often older people who have retired from full-time employment. They may be based at a pelican crossing, a zebra crossing, or just an ordinary point on the road widely used as a crossing.
Under UK law it is an offence for a motorist not to stop if signalled to do so by a patroller. In the past patrollers only had the authority to stop the traffic for children, but around 2000 the law was changed so that they had the authority to stop the traffic for any pedestrians.
A particular fictional example of a lollipop man is "Pak E. Derm", an obstacle presented as an enemy in the video game Yoshi's Story for the Nintendo 64.
External links
Pedestrian crossing components | Pedestrian crossings | Safety | Traffic law
"Crossing guard"