As he waited for kids, the 74-year-old retiree would often cup his hands to his mouth in the cold morning air.

He wasn’t trying to keep warm. He was playing his harmonica.

“He enjoyed playing his harmonica,” laughed his daughter, Michelle Robinson, recalling the time someone reached out to a police supervisor to ask if they could buy him some gloves to protect his hands.

“Look closer,” the supervisor directed the caller. “His hands are not shaking. He’s playing a harmonica,” she said.

Robinson said her father was always waving to someone, talking to people and joking with the kids he would help walk across the street armed with nothing more than a hand-held stop sign. In the cold and the rain, on snowy days and in the hot weather, he was always there.

“I need to get to my corner,” he would tell his daughter.

On a Friday morning in December 2024, shortly after 7 a.m., he was at his post as usual. Two eighth grade students began to walk into the roadway while the crossing guard held up his stop sign.

Surveillance video captured what happened next.

A red 2006 Toyota Corolla came speeding south on Jacksonville Road as the crossing guard quickly blocked one of the kids from walking into the path of vehicle, while the other one jumped back. The driver narrowly missed hitting all three as they stopped in the middle of the road and then kept going. But right behind was a fast-moving 2015 Chrysler 200.

Police said Morlack saved both kids from getting hit before he was struck directly by the white sedan, with the force of the impact propelling him in the air. Rushed to Capital Health Regional Medical Center in Trenton in critical condition, he was later pronounced dead.

“My dad did not die instantly,” said Robinson. “He fought to survive for hours after the crash. The trauma to his body was devastating and left him unrecognizable.”

From 1993 through May of this year, 19 New Jersey crossing guards lost their lives shepherding children to and from school after being hit by drivers who either ignored or were oblivious to their directions to come to a stop. Overall, more than 390 other crossing guards were injured on the job as a result of motor vehicle accidents during the same period, according to the state Department of Health.

In just the last three years, three school crossing guards were killed and nine others injured in cities and towns across New Jersey, according to the latest data compiled by the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

“It’s one of the most dangerous jobs in municipal government,” said Sean Meehan, research project manager for the New Jersey Safe Routes to School Resource Center at the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University. “We see a lot of bad behavior.”

Just a month before Morlack’s death, Robert Bork — a 79-year-old crossing guard and decorated Vietnam War veteran — was fatally injured in High Bridge in November of 2024 near the borough’s elementary school.

In October 2025, another crossing guard sustained minor injuries near Burlington City High School after being hit by a vehicle on the same road where Morlack was killed the previous year.

And earlier this month, 80-year-old New Jersey crossing guard Jean Schultz was killed and two students were injured when they were struck by an SUV in a marked crosswalk in Woodland Park after school was let out on a Monday afternoon.

New Jersey has about 6,900 crossing guards. Most are typically hired, trained and supervised by municipal police departments. According to questionnaires Meehan has distributed at training sessions, the salary for a newly hired crossing guard can range from minimum wage to more than $20 an hour.

Many who take the job are retired, looking for something to do during the day.

But Meehan said some of those working the crosswalks are becoming increasingly apprehensive about stepping in front of vehicles that are bigger, moving faster, and styled with high hoods that leave drivers with major blind spots.

In a report he authored last year titled Voices from the Crosswalk, issued by Rutgers University’s Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, crossing guards interviewed in focus groups spoke of dealing with heavy traffic, distracted drivers, larger sport utility vehicles that now crowd the roadways, as well as the running of red lights, bad behavior and incredibly nasty verbal abuse from those behind the wheel.

One crossing guard in Trenton reported: “I am constantly disrespected and told to ‘get a real job.’”

Others in Passaic and North Bergen called speeding and near-misses common occurrences, with one commenting that “distracted driving” wasn’t the correct term for what was happening. They thought it deliberate. “It seems like they just don’t care,” said one guard.

In Woodland Park where Jean Schultz was the most recent crossing guard fatality, plunging her suburban community into collective grief just weeks ago, Mayor Tracy Kallert promised the borough council days after the deadly incident that there would be “an immediate and thorough review of the conditions and traffic patterns” at the intersection where the incident took place.

“This review will include evaluating traffic flow, signal timing, signage, roadway conditions, pedestrian visibility, and the possible relocation of nearby bus stops in an effort to improve overall safety for pedestrians and students alike,” she said.

The mayor, speaking at a council meeting, also said there would be increased police presence and targeted traffic enforcement in the area.

“There will be a zero tolerance policy for unsafe and improper driving on borough streets, especially in and around our crosswalks and schools,” she said, noting reckless behavior on the roads that she had observed herself while visiting the intersection where Schultz was killed.

Police officials in the borough say the overwhelming majority of drivers are compliant with school crossing posts. Most recognize that when a crossing guard walks out with the stop sign raised, it is considered to be a traffic control measure under the law, said Woodland Park Deputy Chief Michael Brady.

Acting Commissioner Kevin D. Jarvis, who heads the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, expressed concern about the ongoing rash of incidents that have led to serious injuries and fatalities among crossing guards across state.

“Every worker deserves to come home safe and sound at the end of the day,” he said.

For Sangeeta Badlani, founder of Families for Safe Streets NJ, incidents involving injuries and sometimes death to school crossing guards are heartbreaking.

“Too many people are in a hurry, speeding, distracted, impatient, or failing to obey traffic laws in school zones and at crosswalks,” she said. “A crossing guard stepping into the roadway should immediately command a driver’s full attention. Slowing down for a few moments is a small inconvenience compared to the devastating consequences of a crash.”

She also said communities need to stop being reactive after tragedies occur and look toward preventing them.

“Incidents like these underscore why we need to seriously consider proven safety measures, such as automated speed enforcement in school zones,” said Badlani, who lost her 11-year-old son, Nikhil, when a driver ran a stop sign. “When drivers know they will be held accountable, speeds go down and lives are saved.”

That also means investing in safer street design around schools, lower vehicle speeds, traffic calming measures, highly visible crosswalks, better lighting, and stronger enforcement in school zones, she said.

“We cannot continue to rely solely on crossing guards to compensate for dangerous driver behavior and unsafe roadway conditions,” Badlani said. “Every crossing guard killed or injured represents a systemic failure and a heartbreaking reminder that the people protecting our children deserve to be protected as well.”

It’s not just a New Jersey problem.

Data compiled by the AP and Cox Media Group last year found that at least 230 school crossing guards across 37 states and Washington, D.C., were struck by vehicles on the job over the last decade. Nearly three dozen were killed.

Yet the investigation, based on incident and accident reports requested from nearly 200 police departments, found there was no systematic way to track how many crossing guards are actually injured or killed throughout the country each year. And it found drivers who hit crossing guards rarely faced criminal charges in fatal encounters. About a quarter of the drivers weren’t ticketed at all.

It said only New Jersey and Massachusetts have made a serious effort to track crossing guard safety.

Jarvis said the state continues to double down on efforts to better protect crossing guards, especially by raising public awareness of the critical need for everyone to slow down and drive safely.

The state’s Office of Public Employees Occupational Safety and Health conducted 198 inspections affecting 1,508 crossing guards since it instituted a crossing guard safety program last year. Officials said that resulted in the issuance of 79 hazard awareness letters, 13 personal protective equipment citations, and eight training violations.

“Crossing guards are an integral part of our daily lives,” the labor commissioner said. “We depend on them to help our children get to and from school safely each day.”

A no-crossing zone

Today in Burlington City, a memorial to Bruce Morlack stands on the corner of Jacksonville and James Street, marking the spot where the crossing guard was fatally struck.

The crosswalk where he played the harmonica has been removed. A sign warns pedestrians not to cross there.

His daughter, Michelle, has walked the road.

“It is intimidating. You can feel the road shaking and the wind as vehicles flying by,” she said. “People know what happened. But they still weave through and speed in a school zone.”

Now an outspoken advocate for traffic safety awareness and a member of Families for Safe Streets, she questions why the drivers responsible for her father’s death were not criminally charged.

The young woman behind the wheel of the Toyota never stopped. She was later identified by the surveillance video which captured her license plate number. The woman driving the Chrysler did pull over. Robinson said both just received traffic tickets for reckless driving and license suspensions.

The Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office confirmed that no criminal charges were filed against either driver. “Following an extensive legal review, there was no evidence of criminal conduct on the part of the driver who struck Mr. Morlack,” a spokesman said.

Police officials in the city of Burlington did not respond to requests for comment.

Robinson said the lack of accountability reflects a dangerous level of tolerance and indifference toward traffic violence, adding that such tolerance is costing lives. She also wondered whether pedestrian crashes have become so common that many have grown desensitized to them.

“We continue to call them accidents, minimizing the reality of harm that is caused, limiting accountability and overlooking that they are preventable,” said Robinson. “When a vehicle crashes into the human body, the damage is catastrophic, yet the brutality and violence of these crashes are rarely acknowledged.”

She added, too, that victims are often reduced to numbers instead of being recognized as fathers, mothers, children, friends, and valued members of the community.

“My dad was a wonderful father. A great grandfather,” she said, talking of his sense of humor, his jokes, the twirling of his stop sign and his ever-present harmonica. “He’s my hero. He was dedicated. He took it very seriously. But he would have been beside himself if anything had happened to either of those kids.”

Meanwhile, Robinson said crossing guards go out there and “put their lives on the line to protect the kids and keep people safer but do it anyway. We don’t give them enough credit.”

She said her father did not know when he stepped off the curb that morning that he would never return to his family.

“He should have made it home. Our crossing guards, pedestrians, and community members deserve better, and we must do everything we can to ensure they make it home safely too,” she said.

Morlack was survived by his daughter, his son Paul, four grandchildren, two brothers and two sisters.