TULSA, Okla. — Twice this year, speeding cars screeched to a halt, stopping just a few feet from Nichole Tarbox's fifth-grade son.
She made a report to Tulsa Police earlier this month. But when the problems didn't stop, Tarbox took to the street. Now she holds a sign up outside the school two to three times a week.
"It scares me, it really does. The teacher was asking my son "why is your mom standing out there with a sign? Did you have an accident?" He was like "no, she's just out there with a sign," Tarbox said.
Tarbox said she wasn't willing to wait on an accident to see changes.
"I thought if I could stand out here and grab people's attention and try to slow them down then that's what I'm going to do as a mother. I'm going to try and do all I can for my child," she said.
The crossing guard at Lanier Elementary told 2 Works for You he's had to jump out of the way of speeding cars in the neighborhood at least three times since the school year started.
"Luckily they stop and I just back up because I'm trained to watch the traffic, you know. But the little kids don't. They know one thing, crossing that street and that's all," Larry Tyson said.
Tulsa Police said they rotate between school zones, but it's often hard to cover these areas in addition to all the other traffic incidents. Officers said they wished they could monitor crosswalks more, but there are only three traffic cops assigned to each Tulsa division.
In the meantime, Tyson said he's taking his job seriously.
"One of these days they're going to be somebody: a teacher or somebody at channel 2. But the way they're going and the way people are driving they're not going to make it," he said.
Officers said people can use the mayor's action report line. Traffic concerns get filtered to police to alert TPD of problem areas.
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