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ST. GEORGE — Parents in St. George say they’ve been calling for a crossing guard at a busy intersection where two children have been hit in the last month.
The intersection of Little Valley Road and Crimson Ridge Drive is extremely busy with a constant stream of traffic and hundreds of children on their way to and from school.
Both children — one a first-grader hit last month, and the other in kindergarten hit on Wednesday — survived the accidents and are OK, but for parents, that doesn’t matter. They say they’ve been asking for something to be done about this intersection for several years.
“This crosswalk isn’t safe,” said Amanda Zoll, mother of the kindergartener. “There’s more than a hundred kids who come through here every day. And it’s really scary.”
The intersection does have a four-way stop sign, but concerned parents say it’s not enough.
“We’ve had two kids hit in the past couple of weeks,” said Heather Pingegar, a concerned parent. “And that’s two too many.”
Jennifer Brady, another parent, said that her son “witnessed the one who was hit (on Wednesday). He was just right behind him.”
Parents such as Zoll and Emily Wall — mother of the first-grader hit last month — have had numerous conversations with city officials about putting a crossing guard in place here, but the city says it’s not that simple. There are state laws that outline criteria that must be met — traffic and pedestrian counts — to allow for a crossing guard.
But the city recognizes that the area is a problem that needs to be addressed.
“We will have conversations with our city manager and mayor and City Council to see if there are some other options that we can look at,” Cameron Cutler, St. George Public Works director, said. Based on the laws, they can “see if we can change some policy, maybe relook at it and see what we can do.”
Parents believe that a crossing guard could at least help keep things better organized at the intersection.
“Obviously it’s not a 100 percent cure for every incident,” Wall said. “But a crossing guard would help a ton.”
Several of the parents told KSL that they just want “something” done.
Contributor: Freeman Stevenson
