Lollipop men and women will no longer help pupils cross the road during lunchbreaks at most Dundee primary schools if proposals to restructure the service go ahead.
Dundee City Council wants to withdraw the lunchtime crossing patrols after the summer holidays.
Services will only be retained at schools where a significant number of pupils use the crossing points at dinner time.
Lollipop man Ian Loney, 70, has worked at Ancrum Road Primary School for a decade and said he believed the decision is about saving money but could cost lives.
He said: “It’s just going to take one person to get hit by a car because of it to show what a mistake it is.
“Denise Matthew from Tayside Contracts came down to speak to us about it on Monday.”
Mr Loney said crossing patrol staff have been told they could make up lost wages by working as cleaners but that he has refused that offer.
He said: “They have asked us to come in our days off.
“We used to get in-service days off but they want us to come in and pick up leaves and paper.
“I said ‘no, I’m a lollipop man’.
“They also want cleaners to help pupils cross the road if one of us is off. They basically want us all to interchange our jobs.
“They thought they would get a huge squad of us.”
Although there are traffic lights directly outside Ancrum Road Primary School and at the junction with Logie Street where a second lollipop person stands, parents still said they feared the consequences of removing crossing patrols.
Tajib Hussain, whose daughters Ashlina, nine, and Suhana, five, attend Ancrum Road Primary School said the move would not affect him personally.
But he said it could be dangerous for any unsupervised children trying to cross the road.
Grandmother Marie Ward, 62, who was collecting her grand-daughter Robyn, 8, from the school at lunchtime on Tuesday, said: “There are not a lot of kids that come out at lunchtime but it is a bit of a shame.
“It will be difficult to get people to do the job if they take those hours away.”
But West End Liberal Democrat councillor Fraser Macpherson, who sits on the School Parking and Pupil Safety Working Group said the proposed restructuring is down to lack of demand rather than cuts.
Mr Macpherson added the move would allow more lollipop men and women to be deployed at additional crossing points in the morning and afternoon.
He said: “It is really about low numbers. It makes absolutely no sense in resource terms to have crossing patrollers standing where nobody is crossing.
“I have no concerns so long as the process is followed and parents and carers are properly consulted.”
A Dundee City Council spokeswoman said: “We are looking into the delivery of school crossing patrollers at lunch time on a school by school basis.
“The School Parking and Pupil Safety Working Group has backed this decision and we will continue to engage with them we take proposals forward.
“In 2016, there was committee agreement to adopt the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (ROSPA) and Road Safety GB guidance for establishing school crossing patrol points.
“This has enabled the council to use a much more robust method of assessing where crossing points should be located around the city.
“In accordance with this guidance, detailed site surveys have been carried out to determine if road safety criteria is being met over the lunch time period.
“At Ancrum Road Primary School, the site survey revealed that during lunch time no pupils used the crossing point on Logie Street and that only four pupils, who were accompanied by adults, used the crossing point at Ancrum Road main entrance.
“As these points do not meet ROSPA/Road Safety GB criteria, we will be carrying out a consultation for the decommissioning of the two lunchtime only points.
“This proposal will have no impact on the school crossing patroller operating in the morning or afternoon.”
