The almighty, All powerful, All controlling Crossing guards!!

Oh they drive me up the wall.
Is there a crossing guard school? Because I think most of the ones in our area flunked out or something.
They are worse than the nasty school bus drivers who see you coming along, the only car around for miles, and rather than waiting for you to quickly drive by, they stick out that giant "do not pass unless you want a $5000 fine" Stop sign, so that 58 kids can unload and dawdle across the street, in safety from your lone vehicle.

Today due to the snow, the school buses were running late, and I laughed in glee at all the waiting parents and kids as I sailed by in my minivan - well ahead of the big yellow rocket barrelling up the road behind me. HA, no getting stopped by that bus today, no sirree, I am ahead of the bus, and well on my way to dropping my son off in a timely fashion.

Enter the evil crossing guards.
There are at least 4 elementary schools between our house, and Duncan's school. Because our local school is not set to open for another month, they shipped all the kids in our neighbourhood to schools that were as far away as possible, thus necessitating a long drive past other much closer schools, with power hungry crossing guards.
In defense of crossing guards, I will say, that yes, they are charged with making sure children cross the street safely - a noble profession indeed - but do they have to do this in such a dopey, lack of common sense manner? I mean it will not hurt children to wait 20 seconds, until traffic has cleared before they go barging across the street. In fact it may be good to teach them to wait a little - not everything is instant gratification in life - we all must learn to wait. And yet it seems I am the only one doing the waiting. Don't get me wrong - I have no problem with waiting for the kids to cross - what I do have a problem with is the crossing guard taking the power of their little stop sign and day-glow vest to the extreme. It is not necessary to stop my car when the kid that wants to cross is still halfway down the block, making me wait, not only for the kid to meander to the intersection, but then wait further as they dawdle across the street - stopping in the middle to chat with said crossing guard. PLEASE.
Another irritant is the guard who doesn't make the kids cross in clumps - but rather stands there in the middle of the street while a continuous stream of kids and parents cross one at a time. Make them wait, and cross as a group - it's not hard to do.
The ones that bug me the most though, are the ones that see me coming - Even if I'm the only car on the street - the only car they've seen that day. They'll stop me because they can. Because they are holding that miniature stop sign, and they know I won't run them over - no matter how tempting it is. Why not just wait that extra 3 seconds, to let me go, and THEN let the kid cross, taking however long they want to. What is it with them anyway?

The two crossing guards at my son's school are both very good - Graduated top of their class I'm sure. One of them always waits for traffic to clear before bringing out her stop sign, and the other one is just a nice guy who uses common sense when getting kids to cross the street. I gladly stop for them - but usually don't have to, as they play the crossing guard game correctly. Without the almighty attitude. Simply trying to keep our kids safe, without irritating drivers or interrupting the natural flow of traffic.

EDITED: For Seeester: Yes we finally got there in time (well only a minute late). Took him in and there were only 6 kids in his class - because the buses were all late!