SCHOOL ZONE SAFETY
Careless driving by parents around a Thornhill campus has a crossing guard worrying about children,
Blocked lanes, stop signs blown through, illegal parking, horns honking, people driving while on cellphones, kids not buckled into car seats.
All within metres of a public elementary school as students exit for the day.
It’s a daily occurrence at Thornhill’s Baythorn Public School, located in the Yonge St. and Royal Orchard Blvd. area.
Cindy Thompson, a crossing guard who has worked within metres of the school for four years, said she feels as though “a target” is on her back.
And she has seen all kinds of unsafe driving behaviour by parents.
“I’m a protective bear mom. I’ve seen them do stupid things like blow stop signs, do U-turns by a crosswalk and I think, ‘Who taught you how to drive?’ Where do people get their licences from?” Thompson worries for her own safety and that of the children.
She peers over the large SUVs parked illegally along Bay Thorn Dr. and fears that with vehicles illegally parked on both sides of the street, it’s only a matter of time before a child who crosses away from the crosswalk to meet a car gets hit.
While a reporter and photographer watched as school let out last Friday, Thompson even had to shoo away a car that had parked right on her crosswalk, lined up behind four other illegally parked cars ignoring posted signs. Asked why she stopped in the middle of a lane, her SUV blocking one of the two lanes of Bay Thorn Dr. in front of the school, a woman replied: “That’s what we’ve been told. You’re not allowed to park on the other side, but people do.” Not so, according to Thompson. “(Bay Thorn Dr.) is only a two-way (street), so anything close to the school, they’re not allowed to park between 8 and 9 a.m. and 2:30 to 3:30 p.m.”
Asked why parents do it, Thomp- son said, “They’re lazy.”
Indeed, seven or eight vehicles obey the no-parking/no-stopping signs on Bay Thorn Dr. and park just a short block away on Donalbain Cres., which has plenty of space for many vehicles to park. Jen, a mom who parked on Donalbain Cres., thinks the parking mess in front of Baythorn P.S. isn’t good for anyone.
“It’s terrible and it’s not a good example for the kids,” she said.
Markham’s acting director of bylaw enforcement Chris Alexander agrees there’s a real parent parking problem at Baythorn.
“It’s a problem at that school. We’ve identified it as one of our Top 10 offenders (among about 90 schools in Markham) and it’s on the hit list for problems that we hear from residents or the school itself. We’re in the midst of doing an audit of that school. We’ll be doing focused enforcement on it,” Alexander said.
He added that city bylaw officers will educate parents that they can’t park on either side of Baythorn between 8 and 9 a.m. and 2:30 and 3:30 p.m. and then “once we get the education component done, we will go in and issue tickets.” Those who park illegally will be ticketed $40, while those parked illegally in a fire zone can be hit with a $200 ticket.
The York Region District School Board said while it doesn’t have jurisdiction over crossing guards or bylaw enforcement, “our schools always encourage students and their families to follow the rules of the road and to walk and drive safely to and from school. We will continue to work with the city of Markham to increase awareness of the city’s bylaws and the school’s pickup and drop-off procedures.”
Thompson worries that emergency vehicles may be impeded from getting down Bay Thorn Dr. while parents park illegally during morning drop-off and evening pickup times.
“There are seniors all the way down the street here. One gentleman had cancer and had his nose removed. What if he can’t get out? There is a 94-year-old just up the street,” she said.
“You couldn’t get an emergency vehicle up here,” she pointed out as a school bus had to cross into an opposite lane because illegally parked cars blocked its lane.
Dave Decker, Markham’s fire chief, said a fire prevention officer has been assigned to check Bay Thorn Dr. during pickup and drop-off school times.
Thompson said she’s complained to the school and even to the police, but it hasn’t changed the behaviour of the parental parking rogues.
“Parents don’t care how they pick up their kids, you’d think the first thing that would come to mind would be safety. I would say to them go down to the crosswalk and I’ll pick you up around the corner,” she said.