I-TEAM: Crossing Guard Casualties. Hundreds hit on the job, most drivers face few consequences

DAYTON — A News Center 7 I-Team investigation uncovered that over the last 10 years, more than 225 crossing guards have been hit while working to keep our kids safe on the way to and from school.

We found instances across the country and right here in the Miami Valley of crossing guards getting badly injured or even killed on the job.

The I-Team’s lead investigative reporter, John Bedell, teamed up with our sister stations across the country and the Associated Press and found many of the at-fault drivers faced few consequences.

We dug into what’s being done to help keep crossing guards safer.

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The I-Team has been working for months to track just how often crossing guards are hit on the job.

So, we did our own research as a part of this investigation: digging through public records and hearing from the people impacted. Many of them said they felt disregarded.

Becky Evans has been an educator with Franklin City Schools for more than 20 years. In the fall of 2024, she took on another title: crossing guard.

“I had fun with my kids when I was out there,” Evans told the I-Team in a recent interview.

When she volunteered for the job, Becky wasn’t worried about getting hurt.

“(But) the more I did it, the more dangerous it became,” Evans said. “There’d been several times that I almost got hit.”

And then, a split-second decision led to lasting impacts.

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This past January, a driver hit Evans while she was finishing a shift as a crossing guard in front of Franklin Junior High School.

Franklin Police body camera video the I-Team obtained shows Becky lying in the street with her head on the curb along East 4^th Street in the crosswalk near Beam Drive in front of the school.

“I tried to run and jump out of her way, but I didn’t make it,” you can hear Becky say to witnesses and a Franklin officer in the video. “I was trying to cross back over with my big red (stop) sign, and she hit me. She didn’t stop.”

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The school’s security cameras caught the impact on video.

“I turned to face the one side and all I saw was car lights coming at me, and all I could say was, ‘Oh my god,’” Becky told the I-Team last month. “And I turned sideways so she wouldn’t hit me head-on. And she hit me, and I landed on the berm of the road.”

The at-fault driver can be heard in the body camera video giving a statement to Franklin police.

“I just didn’t see her,” the driver said. “I just didn’t see her.”

Evans suffered serious injuries to her head and legs. The driver who hit her got a traffic citation, a $48 fine, and $102 in court costs.

Now nine months after the crash, Evans is dealing with long-term physical impacts from her injuries, including her speech.

“Mentally (the recovery) is going to take a lot longer,” Evans told the I-Team. “I still see the headlights coming at me.”

Becky Evans is far from alone.

We saw a similar situation in front of an elementary school near Cincinnati last August, where a driver hit a crossing guard. The crossing guard suffered minor injuries, and the driver got a citation.

The female driver who hit the crossing guard can be heard in Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office body camera video the I-Team obtained, telling a responding deputy, “I didn’t even see her.”

And in 2018, surveillance cameras were rolling near Columbus when the driver of a pickup truck hit a crossing guard and kept going. The driver hopped a curb and took off through the grass in front of an elementary school.

Online court records the I-Team reviewed show prosecutors eventually dismissed three of the four original charges against the man who was driving that truck. He pleaded guilty to an amended charge related to a count of hit-skip that he originally faced, had a six-month jail sentence suspended, got a year of probation plus 80 hours of community service, and paid a total of $368.26 in court costs and a fine.

We teamed up with our Cox Media Group sister stations across the country and the Associated Press for a months-long investigation to document 231 crossing guard accidents in the last decade.

We know what we found is an undercount because the I-Team found no one tracks that information nationally. Only two states keep track locally. Ohio isn’t one of them.

The I-Team searched media reports and social media to compile those accidents.

At least 32 of the 231 were deadly.

We got a hold of law enforcement records in 180 of the cases. Our investigation found 74% of those drivers who hit crossing guards got away with just traffic tickets – or no citation at all.

At least 40 of the accidents, like the one in Columbus in 2018, were hit-and-run. And six of those drivers were never found.

Our investigation also found that many of the crossing guards hit were senior citizens. Many of them were working as crossing guards in retirement.

Of the 160 for whom we identified their ages, more than half, 54%, were older than 65.

The I-Team talked to crossing guards around the country who have been hit on the job.

“All I remember doing was turning around and boom, lights out. Lights out,” Anthony Taylor, from Indianapolis, told the I-Team. “I don’t remember anything until I got to the hospital.”

Virgil Woods was working as a crossing guard in Georgia when a driver hit him.

“I didn’t have no feelings in my leg, my head was hurting, blood was running down my arm,” Woods said. “It was a scary situation.”

The I-Team found that Ohio doesn’t specifically track the number of crossing guards hit. We filed a public records request with the Ohio State Highway Patrol and found that over the last five-and-a-half years here in Ohio (January 1, 2020, through September 3, 2025) 131 people were hurt in 127 crashes involving pedestrians getting struck in active school zones.

But state crash reports don’t specify if the person hit was a crossing guard.

And state troopers told the I-Team, “that number will most likely be underreported,” because it relies on the law enforcement officer who fills out the report to check a box that says, ‘Active School Zone,’ which doesn’t always happen.

Becky Evans wasn’t the only person to get hit along E. 4^th Street near Franklin Junior High. And that’s prompted changes.

Not long before Becky was hurt, a driver who was not paying attention hit two students just down the road from the crosswalk where Becky was hit. Those students did not suffer severe injuries.

“The ‘final’ straw if you will, occurred at the end of this past (’24-’25) school year when our School Resource Officer has positioned in the middle lane, with solid marker lights on,” Franklin City Manager Jonathan Westendorf told the I-Team.

“Our SRO was repositioned to that school since State Route 123 was closed for the construction of the roundabout (near Franklin High School). Our officer witnessed drivers drive through the crosswalk, with the crosswalk attendant escorting children across the roadway, three times in one month. It should be mentioned all three drivers were cited. Upon learning this information, I immediately called our team together with school officials and said we needed to utilize traffic safety engineering countermeasures to help address the issue.”

New safety features, including delineators aimed at slowing drivers and preventing crashes like the ones that hurt Becky, were installed at the intersection.

“The school district funded the delineators, while our team completed the design, coordination, and installation of the devices,” Westendorf said.

Franklin City Schools Superintendent Mike Sander told the I-Team, “It is important to work with the city to keep our students and our crossing guards safe. I appreciate the city working with us to develop a plan and traffic pattern that will help keep everyone safe. I believe these changes are making a difference as I’ve already seen cars slowing down when entering the school zone. The reduced speed is a key component in having safe school zones.”

Franklin Police Chief Adam Colon recently gave the I-Team a tour of the safety changes at the crosswalk inside the school zone along E. 4^th Street and Beam Drive in front of Franklin Junior High.

“It’s meant to provide safety for pedestrians, in particular students who are crossing to come to school in the morning,” Chief Colon told the I-Team. “I mean, be it a crossing guard or God forbid, a kid, it could be deadly. It doesn’t take much with a heavy vehicle, even at slower speeds, to cause some significant injuries or worst-case scenario, death. So we don’t want that to happen. So we’re trying to be proactive.”

Becky Evans now works as a custodian for Franklin City Schools.

“I’m not able to walk out to that road yet,” Evans said. “And it bothers me every day. I stand inside the school, and I watch some of them kids walk across, and I’m scared for them, but I’m angry that I still ain’t able to walk out there yet.”

She showed the I-Team some of the get-well cards that students sent her after her accident in January.

“Eventually, I will get out to that road,” she told the I-Team. “Eventually. I can’t promise that I’m going to be a crossing guard ever again. But eventually, my goal is to at least stand on the sidewalk. My kids need to see that you can do anything if you put your mind to it.”

As she recovers from her accident, Becky says she’s determined to make sure people remember an instant she’d rather forget.

“One person’s split-second decision could change a whole life,” Evans said.

She wants drivers to remember that when they’re driving through a school zone.

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