Jamaican School Crossing Guards
on George Hamilton (Jamaica), 24/Jun/2011 01:47, 34 days ago
Speaking for myself, I think it's very unlikely that I would have written a blog about school crossing guards. But you know how it works, often the blog takes over and writes itself.800x600Normal0falsefalsefalseEN-CAX-NONEX-NONEMicrosoftInternetExplorer4I can head down to my work at DRF on Camp Road using four different bus routes, so I rarely pass along Marescaux Road because it would have meant two things. Firstly I was on a number 78 bus and had to stand the whole way down Old Hope Road to Cross Roads, and secondly I would have had to walk the furthest distance down Caledonia Road and Camp Road once I got off the bus.Being on a city bus in Kingston is a pretty safe way to travel because you tend to be in the larger vehicle, like one of the big yellow guys above, if there is a collision. So unless you run into a cement truck or vice versa, you're pretty safe.The world becomes unsafer and unsafer as you get onto smaller vehicles like coasters, and then down to route taxis. This is just a generalization of course, because one friendly route taxi driver, whose name I forgot to ask, can only be classified as the safest driver you would ever meet whose hands never touched the steering wheel.Progressing along we can conclude that being in a vehicle is relatively safe, but then if you are a pedestrian, you are not quite as safe. Pedestrians increase their chances of living longer by staying off the roads and staying on the sidewalks as much as possible. Even being on the sidewalks is no sure guarantee. In Canada you are meant to walk facing traffic if there are no sidewalks, whereas in Jamaica you are recommended to face the traffic whether there is a sidewalk or not.Therefore you can only have the greatest admiration and respect for those people who deliberately go out into traffic. They do not timidly cling to the sidewalks furthest away from traffic. Erroll Vassell, school crossing guard, is one such hero.Cultural differences play a big part in the comparison between Jamaica and Canada. With all due respect to Canadian school crossing guards, theirs is an easy life. If you are driving a vehicle in Canada the law is that you have to stop at school crossings, while in Jamaica, as far as I can tell (I'm not joking but simply reporting what I have heard) pedestrians only have the right of way on a crossing if the vehicles are stopped. Talk about a Catch-22 situation if the vehicles are still moving.And moving vehicles usually have a dangerous component - the driver. I know because I have experienced them. Three times in my first year in Jamaica I was a passenger in vehicles on the wrong side of the road with oncoming traffic. As you can tell they all missed, but I have felt happier in the second half of my experience that this pattern has not continued. The drivers here tend to have attitudes, or more so than Canadian drivers. So this leads to the big question of why Jamaican drivers with attitude slow down at a school crossings.The answer hinges on who is out there on the road in front of them. Is it a sixty year old plus Canadian volunteer who would love the challenge of leaping for dear life back onto the sidewalk, or is it somebody with authority that you do not mess with?It's not the greatest photo above, but Erroll is to the left of the motor cyclist, wearing a white hat, and at the front of all the traffic.Erroll makes friendly but authoritative eye contact with the drivers and points directly at them. This is in case they have notes from their doctors saying that they were deaf and could not hear his loud whistles. Loud whistles is a relative term - in Canada they can invite the attentions of the noise abatement officers, while in Jamaica it is simply a matter of overwhelming the normal run-of-the-mill honking from the traffic.Overwhelm is the right verb to use, but it is done in a friendly way. During the minute or two I was in the vicinity of the crossing Erroll Jamaican hand-shook two drivers who were obviously his friends. He must know a lot of the drivers as he has been a crossing guard on that part of Marescaux Road for nine years.Then once he has established ear and eye contact Erroll boldly goes with his authoritative sign where no Canadian volunteer would go. Yes, out into what would be the oncoming traffic for me, but not for him.Closer up we can see that it is school children crossing the road.They are on the way to St Hugh's High School that has its own site on FaceBook and also has a school emblem. The school's emblem is well designed with its dark blue color and white accents; also it has tasteful but simple graphics.Ah ha, I see that the blog has fallen asleep so I can slip in my own brand of humor. (The blogs don't always write themselves).I wonder what it the emblem means? Maybe once swans lived near here, but over time the Jamaican drivers accidentally ran over them all?I'm new to Jamaica so I may have misinterpreted things, but perhaps the school emblem's initials SH SH mean "Please be quiet, students at work".Or possibly we should zero in on the Patois word Fidelitas meaning faithfulness. If I recall correctly, Julius Ceasar spoke the same language, so he was probably Jamaican too.The blog has returned and wrested control back from me. Jokes are over, sensibleness returns.School crossing are a serious business and whenever we read of high scoring Jamaican students who pass their GSATs (Grade Six Achievement Test) with flying colors, we should not forget to thank the Jamaican school crossing guards, like Erroll Vassell, who played their part too.