To 89-year-old Fong Hsiao-tien (馮嘯天), ensuring children’s safety is a labor of love.
A retired primary school teacher, Fong began volunteering to direct traffic at the entrance of Chung Yuan Primary School in Jhongli City (中壢), Taoyuan County, 10 years ago. Unlike other volunteers, who can only help out one or two days a week, Fong would show up at the school five days a week, rain or shine.
“The school gate was less than 5m from the road. Parents who drove their children to school would block the entrance if they did not move quickly. Sometimes the children would still be eating breakfast or sleeping in the cars when they arrive. I would open the car doors for them and urge them to quickly get out of the cars so that the traffic could flow smoothly,” Fong said, adding that he would also remind the children to wave goodbye to their parents.
Aside from directing traffic, Fong also volunteered to supervise students when teachers were not in the class, helped parents deliver lunchboxes to their children and monitored the caterer serving school lunch on behalf of the school.
“Sometimes, people greet me on the street,” he said. “I don’t know the person, but I think they are parents of the children.”
Fong said he had never had any arguments with any parents when directing traffic and that he took a soft approach to communicating with them.
Fong was one of 183 organizations and individuals recognized by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday who have helped maintain road safety over the years.
Eighty-year-old Lu Lai Chin-yu (呂賴金玉) also volunteered to guide traffic at the school entrance of Kuei-Shan Elementary School in Gueishan Township (龜山), Taoyuan County.
She said she became a volunteer at the school because her grandchildren were studying there. She continued volunteering there after her grandchildren graduated, a job she said was much more interesting than staying at home.
Like Fong, Lu would appear at the school entrance at 6:30am every day of the school week, braving rain and cold.
“I am happy just to see the kids come to school safely,” she said.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) told the awards ceremony that the nation’s roads were safer thanks to the efforts of those heroes. Statistics from the ministry show that the number of motor vehicles in use in the nation has increased nearly 7 percent in the past four years. Accidents in the “A1” category, those leading to immediate death or within 24 hours, dropped by about 35 percent during the same period.
On average, the number of deaths has dropped by 273 people per year.
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