Lollipop men and women cheerfully endure traffic fumes and harsh weather to protect children on their way to school. But they now face “lollipop rage” from abusive drivers.

The problem has become so serious that school-crossing wardens are being armed with high-tech lollipop signs embedded with video cameras to trap errant motorists.

Some councils are also equipping their patrol staff with mobile cameras attached to their hats.

Dozens of lollipop men and women, who earn only £6 an hour and work for one or two hours a day, have been run over or attacked in the past year. A total of 1,400 were abused verbally or assaulted, and many needed hospital treatment.

Local authorities struggle to find enough wardens, and a third of posts are unfilled in some areas. Stalwarts of the school-crossing patrol tend to be elderly people, who see it as a public duty or enjoy the daily interaction with children and grateful parents, or mothers who step into the breach when no one else can be found.

Most drivers obey the lollipop sign, which has the same legal power as a red light, but many refuse to stop. They face a £1,000 fine or three points on their licence but, more seriously, risk injuring a crossing warden, parent or child.

Drivers who ignore the lollipop have shouted and sworn from their car windows, thrown takeaway boxes or coins, revved their engines or beeped their horns, and driven around children who were crossing.

The wardens find this particularly intimidating because they are trained always to keep their eyes on the children, so they cannot look up to gauge drivers’ behaviour.

David Francis was a lollipop man in Gosport, Hampshire, until he was injured seriously when hit by a car last year. He is now unable to walk unaided and takes medication, but said: “I found being a school-crossing patrol an extremely rewarding job. The children rely on you to help them cross safely. I’m thankful every day that the children weren’t hurt, but it deeply saddens me that they saw me lying injured in the road.”

Raj Kumari, 38, saved the life of a child by using her lollipop stick to push him out of the way when a lorry ploughed through her patrol.

The mother of two children, from Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, began doing the job when she filled in for the crossing-patrol warden at her daughter’s school, and now works 6½ hours a week.

She said: “I do enjoy it. I’m not really a morning person and when I see the children’s faces it makes my day. They are really grateful – they’re very good and friendly children. They always listen to what I’m saying and obey.

“But I do suffer daily abuse from drivers, particularly when I’m crossing the road with adults. They shout out of their windows things like, ‘Get out of the way’.

“They rev their engines - it makes me nervous and can get frightening. In one incident I was in the middle of the road and I heard a lorry behind me coming really fast. I had to push a boy out of the way with my stick, or he would have been knocked down. I couldn’t get the registration number as I was making sure the other children were all right.

“The new lollipops will be fantastic and should make drivers think twice,” she added.

The School Crossing Patrol Service was introduced officially in the 1950s. By 2005 a quarter of the country’s 37,000 positions were vacant.

Tracey Chapman-Woods, 37, was killed in 2003 while on duty as a school-crossing patrol warden in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire. She was hit by a van at a pelican crossing.

A year later, a 72-year-old lollipop lady and a four-year-old girl were seriously injured in a hit-and-run incident in Coventry. The car struck both of them, leaving the grandmother with head injuries and the girl with cuts, bruises and in shock.

Wardens receive training of between three days and two weeks, depending on the difficulty of the site they cover. They are taught to keep their arms outstretched and to hold the sign while on the crossing. Increasingly, councils are training them how to cope with abuse and intimidation.

David Sparks, chairman of the Local Government Association’s transport board, said: “The lives of children are at risk from drivers who are so selfish that they are willing to put lives at risk by refusing to stop for 30 seconds at a school crossing.”

Dudley Council has placed orders for the new lollipops. A spokesman said that it wanted to protect its “faithful” crossing wardens.

He said: “Only a handful of incidents each year end up in prosecutions because it’s usually just one person’s word against another. The video footage will obviously provide much stronger evidence.”

Licked into shape

— Lollipop people first began working in 1953 when 1,500 were recruited in London. They started helping adults as well as children in 2001

— They were introduced to enable policemen, who had previously run crossing patrols, to perform other duties

— The earliest lollipops were red and black rectangles printed with “Stop, Children Crossing”

— The round lollipop was introduced in the 1960s. In 1974 the uniform changed to the familiar yellow coat

— In 2006 lollipop people in the London Borough of Richmond started a “Stop Means Stop” campaign in response to drivers’ refusal to obey signs

— Britain’s longest-serving lollipop lady was Eunice Robinson who celebrated 40 years of work on a single patrol in 2002. Ms Robinson had planned to take the job only for a few months as a favour to a friend

— In 2003 Audrey Elliot, a lollipop lady from Derbyshire, was instructed by Derbyshire County Council to remove badges with which she had decorated her hat

— Scotland’s annual Lollipop Person of the Year award attracts about 4,000 entrants. The top prize is a cheque for £4,000 and a golden lollipop

Source: Lollipop Person of the Year Award; Times archive