It’s happened over and over across Western Washington: students hit by cars in crosswalks outside of schools.
In one incident last fall, a driver hit a crossing guard in front of Lake Stevens Middle School.
The body camera from responding officers captured the driver’s explanation: “I turned to look at my dog then that was it, I turned back, and she was hitting the car, like oh my god!”
The crossing guard was standing up and conscious when officers arrived, but said her head was hurting. Reports show she was checked out by medical aid and her injuries were minor.
In a nationwide investigation, KIRO 7 teamed up with our sister stations across the country and the Associated Press, using media and social media reports to track how many crossing guards have been hit or killed while on the job.
Our team tracked more than 225 crossing guards injured or killed in the past decade nationwide – but the Lake Stevens accident was the only one of those here in Washington. When we dug into why that is, we found many schools don’t have crossing guards at all.
KIRO 7 compiled all of the pedestrian crashes in Washington school zones in the last ten years and found 230 people have been hit by vehicles. Many of those were students.
One of them was Calissa Robinson, she was hit in 2016 in Thurston County.
“I stopped and the car sped exactly right in front of me, if I would have leaned in closer, took one step closer, my life would have been gone,” Robinson said.
Dalana Bonin, Calissa’s mom, also spoke with us at the time.
“It threw her about nine feet out and then she had a seizure after she hit the ground,” Bonin said.
In 2014, a school bus seriously injured a 15 year old girl in a crosswalk in Federal Way.
And in 2016, a driver was arrested for hitting a 16 year old outside Kent Meridian High School.
“It’s sad it’s unfortunate you would think people would yield in a spot where it says for people to yield,” said a friend of the Kent victim.
KIRO 7 obtained a sampling of the crash reports for the students hit in our area as well, and found many of the drivers were not given any sort of penalty. Only a few were actually ticketed or even arrested.
KIRO 7 reached out to dozens of school districts to ask why so many kids were being hit in school zones and found a lot of schools don’t use crossing guards at all.
A 2024 report from the Seattle Public Schools’ Traffic Safety Committee found 55% of guard positions were vacant, leading to “a significant safety issue for students.”
“A crossing guard vacancy is not something we prefer but there are other measures in place to mitigate dangers and make sure things are safe as possible,” said Dr. Marni Asplund-Campbell, the Assistant Superintendent of School Operations.
KIRO-7 found half of the 115 positions are still vacant more than a year later.
Seattle Public Schools Assistant Superintendent of Operations Dr. Marni Asplund-Campbell tells us they are working every day to keep students safe.
“A crossing guard vacancy is not something we prefer but there are other measures in place to mitigate dangers and make sure things are safe as possible,” Asplund-Campbell said.
KIRO 7 found half of the positions are still vacant more than a year later. Right now, 58 out of 115 positions in the Seattle School District are up for hire.
She said they are actively working to fill those spots, but with that many vacancies, it takes time.
“They are a little more difficult to fill because it’s an isolated chunk in the morning and end of day, it’s not immediately easy to fill,” Asplund-Campbell said.
She tells us to help with the lack of crossing guards, the district uses community help, flashing crosswalk signs, and tries to reroute traffic away from schools.
KIRO 7 found Washington does not specifically track when crossing guards are hit, they’re included among all other pedestrian crash reports, so it’s harder to identify how many have been hit.
Our investigation found only two states, Massachusetts and New Jersey, require law enforcement to track and report crossing guard crashes to the state.
“There are other states that do the voluntary compliance assistance, I don’t know of any doing it specifically for crossing guards,” said Michael Flanagan with the Massachusetts Department of Labor Standards.
He tells us these incidents deserve to be better reported.
“They’re actually stepping in front of moving traffic to protect your kids, which it sounds insane when you put it into that context right, you think of a parent jumping into traffic but not necessarily a stranger,” Flanagan said.
to help with the lack of crossing guards, the Seattle School district uses community help, flashing crosswalk signs, and tries to reroute traffic away from schools.
This means drivers must also bear some responsibility.
Jessica Orth is a witness to a recent crash in Puyallup where a high school cross country runner was hit near a school. She tells us she has been begging drivers to slow down in that neighborhood for a long time.
“The 20mph zone is in effect between 3:30-4:30pm, you’ve got kids, traffic, just slow down. No life is worth it just slow down,” said Orth.
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