Monday, September 20, 2010

Crossing Guards? REALLY?

Today, I had my first encounter with crossing guards on Purdue's campus. Five students were hit by a car the first four days of class this semester, and the university responded by training and hiring crossing guards. When using the "services" of the crossing guard today at 1st & Russel, instead of feeling safe, I felt ashamed. The university responded to five students' inability to cross the street into making anyone that crosses a street with a crossing guard feel totally alienated and incapable of doing something as mindless as crossing the street.

This is going to sound horrible, but, really, isn't it just natural selection if someone can't take their nose out of their phone for ten seconds to safely cross the street and gets hit? We're supposed to be one of the most prestigious schools in the nation. Purdue is considered an Ivy League school by many (and its reputation grows the further away you get), yet we can't assume that the students that were smart enough to get into this school are intelligent enough to cross a street?

I'm not discounting the fact that some of the intersections on campus are very dangerous, because they are. However, I feel it would have been a better investment on the part of the university to redesign these intersections with the help of West Lafayette, among many other options than the empty and non-permanent expenditures on crossing guards.

3 comments:

  1. We obviously can't assume they're smart enough to cross the streets because they have proved, as a whole, they can't.
    also they can't realize that a bike painted on the ground every 10 feet with street-like paint means that bikes and other fast-propelled transit goes there and no halted wheel-less people.

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  2. What I'm saying, though, is five out of 40,000 students really enough to cause the university to spend money on crossing guards? I don't think it should have been.

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  3. Even further...No one got killed. We're freaking out over nothing

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