>Well, they don't teach them seriously enough. I remember we even had kid cops - during the week of kids' traffic safety, they'd be given real cops uniforms, little stop signs, and they'd be authorized to stop the traffic if there are kids crossing the road to go to school. An adult would be watching from behind, but generally doing nothing. There was even a school level competition in knowing your traffic while on a bike, with all the traffic signs and stuff drawn or erected on the parking lot at the market, and teams would score or lose based on what'd a traffic cop say about their driving. The most interesting part was driving slow without touching ground... you had a ten meter stretch and the more seconds it took you to get to the other side, the better you scored.
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>What I see around here is just... these kids aren't properly trained. They may have heard the stuff, but nobody crammed the importance of it into their heads. So then you probably have to pad them on the outside instead.

I agree. When I was in elementary school, I was a school safety patrol. I left school 10 minutes early each day to stop traffic and get kids safely across the street. I got trip to Washington D.C. out of the deal. :o) Now, though, we have adults who do the same job and they are crossing guards. Teenagers just cross the road before or after the crossing guard though. There are cops on the road to catch speeders in the school zone, but they never stop the kids who cross outside of the crossing guard section.