Corrections on the kerb: How preschool groups prepare for crossing the street

• Children participate in traffic at early age • Kerb areas are loci of street crossing preparations • Preschool children are instructed to cross roads in mobile formations • Preschool teachers socialise children into safe pedestrian behaviour Groups of preschool children holding hands while trotting along on the sidewalk are a common sight in the urban landscape. However, city walks often involve getting to the other side of the street; a risky endeavour that requires organisation, discipline, and watchfulness from children and caretakers alike. In this article we examine the systematic preparatory work in which the participants engage before entering the road. These preparations include (i) assembling at the kerb to restore the mobile formation; (ii) sustaining the formation at the kerb to make manifest the ongoing waiting of the group, until it is time to cross; and (iii) systematically scanning for oncoming traffic, before moving out onto the road in synchronised formation. The analysis focuses in particular on the adult-initiated corrections, showing caretakers’ orientation both towards imminent matters of safety, as well as more prospective concerns with socialising the children into normative pedestrian behaviour. Importantly, the latter aspect entails, and embodies, routines of pedestrian accountability – that is, ways of making plans and intentions available to other road users, allowing them to prepare their actions well ahead of critical situations.