Mother-of-three Karina Carless dreads the day a child is killed while crossing the road outside her local primary school.
She is one of several parents of students at Dunolly Primary School, in central Victoria, calling for the school’s crossing supervisor role to be reinstated.
“I’m a CFA [Country Fire Authority] member, and I’m waiting for my pager to go off,” Ms Carless said.
It is another service to be cut by the cash-strapped Central Goldfields Shire Council that is hoping to save $3.2 million in the next financial year by closing its tips in outlying towns and cutting labour costs.
The Department of Transport provides funding to councils to employ school crossing supervisors.
It uses an equation that requires a minimum of 20 students to use a school crossing and at least 100 vehicles to drive by in an hour.
The department and the council said just four students used the Dunolly crossing each day.
Parents say taking away the Dunolly supervised crossing exposes children to danger. (ABC News: Tyrone Dalton)
But parents say that figure is no longer correct after a growth in enrolments, and that child safety should be the most important consideration.
A council can request supervision on account of safety, such as excessive speed, road geometry, limited sight distance and the number of heavy vehicles.
The school’s acting principal, Natalie Todeschini, said enrolment numbers at the school had grown to 87, up from 79 last year.
“I understand the concerns of the families and support them moving forward when considering building road safety infrastructure,” she said.
The department said it did not receive a funding request from Central Goldfields Shire for the Dunolly site as part of its annual funding cycle.
Parents want the school crossing supervision role reinstated. (ABC News: Tyrone Dalton)
Parents say supervision needed
Dunolly is a small, former gold rush town in Central Victoria that is home to 899 people.
These days, it is cropping and transport that keep many of the town’s residents employed.
Parents say that during harvest, the number of trucks that travel past the school can reach about 230.
Add in a crest just before the school zone, and they say it is a fatal accident waiting to happen.
“Ideally, nobody wants to be scraping a kid off the road,”
parent Megan Redpath said.
Ms Redpath said not having a crossing supervisor placed the onus on children to know and practice road safety.
“It’s also not within their frame of responsibility,” she said.
“At the moment, we barely even have flags out. Like, how do the people coming through know it’s an operational crossing?”
Dunolly is a former gold rush mining town and is now home to 899 people. (Supplied: Rosemary Hiatt)
And Dunolly is not the only school facing cuts to school crossing supervision.
Last month, Campaspe Shire Council in northern Victoria cut the supervisor role from St Joseph’s College Echuca because the Department of Transport said it would not continue to fund it, as not enough students used the crossing.
In a statement, Central Goldfields Shire Council said it would continue to communicate directly with the Dunolly Primary School regarding discussions with the Department of Transport and Planning.
It also urged motorists to slow down in school zones.
————————————————
