“Mr. Steve” is often the first person Rio Vista Elementary School students see each day.

For many students, hearing 68-year-old Steve Karikas shout “Good morning” in front of the school is the official start of their day.

For parents dropping off their children, seeing his orange safety vest is a reminder they need to slow down.

Karikas is the school's volunteer traffic controller.

“Yes, that is my parking lot, and I do have control of it, only because of my safety concerns (for) the students,” Karikas said.

For the past two years, he has policed the once disorderly parking lot, relieving the concerns of school officials and parents.

“The volume of traffic he has to deal with gets pretty high and he has been able to put routines in play for an orderly process,” Rio Vista Elementary School Principal Mike Long said.

“For us, he fell right into a spot we needed help in.”

Karikas has filled the role of a safety monitor for most of his life.

He is a retired school bus driver, a job that made him vigilant and taught him to watch parents as well as students.

“Some parents are not conscious of what's going on,” Karikas said. “Some parents drop off their kids in the middle of the street or leave while their kids are still getting out of the car. I used to see it, and see it now every day, and I just can't handle seeing a child get hurt.”

Often Karikas gets curt with drivers, telling them to slow down or yield to students.

“Ninety percent of people are great. Some parents say, ‘Don't talk to me that way,' and others (say,) ‘Please don't take a day off,'” Karikas said.

Long doesn't like it when Karikas takes the day off either.

“He is extremely hard to replace,” Long said.

He asked Karikas to control traffic last year after learning the part-time math tutor had controlled traffic at the Rose Bowl Parade.

Karikas and Long both said his first days acclimating drivers and students to his strict enforcement of the drop-off policy were tough.

“Now people know that I am doing it for everybody, and the kids tell parents what to do,” Karikas said.