Police launch campaign for safe school routes on the first day of school in Gerolzhofen

The police in Lower Franconia took the start of the new school year on Tuesday as an opportunity to sensitize road users to the issue of “school route safety.” The youngest pupils in particular are still considered to be particularly at risk in traffic, the police report.

This year, the police headquarters in Würzburg chose Gerolzhofen as one of three focal points of the high-profile prevention campaign in the administrative district, alongside Erlenbach am Untermain and Hammelburg in the Bad Kissingen district.

The local police station (PI) in Gerolzhofen was deployed with two patrol crews in the area around the primary school on Lülsfelder Weg from 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday. The “Safe to school, safe home” campaign was not only part of this year, but always at the start of school and during the first days of the school year, one of the main new tasks that the police devote themselves to, reports Michael Kraft, the traffic officer responsible for the local PI.

Use seat belts and child seats correctly

His colleagues' main focus was on maintaining an appropriate driving speed in front of the school, which the officers also checked using a laser gun, but no complaints were recorded that day. In addition, according to Kraft, it is primarily about the obligation to ensure safety, including that children – and of course adults too – are always properly buckled in vehicles and use prescribed seating devices, such as child seats or booster seats.

Police spokesman Denis Stegner added during the on-site meeting that they also wanted to make parents aware of the need to avoid driving their children right up to school. The so-called parent taxis should under no circumstances remain in the second row in front of school buildings as additional visual barriers and bottlenecks. This would also increase road safety in the vicinity of schools.

On the first day of school in Gerolzhofen, two school crossing guards will be on duty alongside the police. They will ensure that pedestrians can safely cross the busy Schallfelder Straße in Gerolzhofen at the intersection with Lülsfelder Weg between 7:30 and 7:50 a.m. on school days.

Student crossing guards perform important services voluntarily

The student crossing guard service is entirely voluntary, says middle school principal André Krauß, whose school plans to train new students from the 7th grade onwards to be student crossing guards again from mid-October. In the last school year, 16 young people took on this voluntary service, says Krauß.

One of them is Jaylee Dresch. The 13-year-old is in the 8th grade this school year and is responsible for the important duty on the side of the road as a school crossing guard for a number of weeks. The fact that he has to leave home early for this doesn't bother him. I'm the opposite. He has repeatedly heard about accidents involving children in traffic, which is why he decided to become a school crossing guard to ensure greater safety, he says.

“Car drivers and bus drivers often greet us when they see us,” he says. He has not yet experienced any unfriendly reactions when he shows road users the baton and asks them to stop. Only sometimes there are cyclists who think the stop signal does not apply to them and simply carry on riding.

Near-crash underlines the explosive nature of the issue

How important her job as a school crossing guard is becomes clear during the on-site visit. A driver quickly drives into the back of a vehicle that had to stop at the intersection in front of her due to traffic and honks, visibly annoyed. Fortunately, nothing happened. Nevertheless, the near-crash shows how quickly an accident can happen in traffic.

According to police, there were 40 traffic accidents on school routes in Lower Franconia last school year. 42 people were injured, reports police spokesman Stegner. “Every accident is one too many.”

Children were among those injured, particularly as a result of incorrectly fastening or not using a seat belt. Against this background, the police are placing particular emphasis on increasing traffic controls around schools and kindergartens at the start of the school year in order to sensitize road users to boys and girls as a particularly vulnerable group.

It is also important for the police to point out that the prevention campaign is not limited to the first day of school. In the following days, the police will be particularly present in the vicinity of schools and kindergartens to prevent accidents.