campaign reminds drivers about School bus safety

Raising awareness about school bus safety and traffic laws is the focus of a campaign recently launched by the State Department of Education to keep students safe.

 It’s a statewide issue with drivers that don’t follow the laws or don’t know the laws when school buses pick up and drop off students.

 The director of student transportation for the State Department of Education surveyed all school districts in the state in 2017 about drivers ignoring school bus stop arms and flashing red lights. A total of 48 districts responded with more than 600 violations reported.

 Both Weiser police and Washington County sheriff’s deputies look for violators of school bus safety laws and patrol school zones and bus routes.

 Weiser Superintendent Wil Overgaard said administrators, bus drivers and transportation officials have identified the routes, both inside and outside of the city limits, where most of the bus stop arm violations occur and law enforcement tries to patrol those areas before and after school.

 Weiser Police Chief Carl Smith said officers patrol the school zones in town every morning and afternoon. They focus on the buses and the stop arms. There have been several violations by drivers that have been called in and investigated.

 Smith said the number of complaints about drivers not obeying the school bus stop arm law has declined with the increased patrolling and officer visibility.

 Sheriff Matt Thomas said there are some problems with drivers not following the law when school buses stop with flashing lights. Most of the problems occur on Highway 95 and west of Weiser on the flats. 

 “We try to be out watching for these violations when we are not busy responding to other calls for service,” Thomas said.

 To assist in catching drivers who violate traffic laws, many of the buses in the Weiser School District have been equipped with side-mounted cameras. In the future all of the district’s bus purchases will have cameras in the base bids.

 District officials said that in the event that a bus driver sees a motorist fail to stop when the stop arm is out, the driver can call law enforcement disptach directly if they can pull over safely, or they can radio the district’s transportation supervisor and have that person call dispatch. 

 If there is video of the violation it will be viewed by the transportation supervisor and if evidence is present on the camera, it is turned over to law enforcement. 

 State law says bus drivers should report stop arm violations to law enforcement and then local authorities will find the driver and issue a citation. 

 Idaho Code says that the owner of the car is responsible for the citation unless they can prove someone else was driving, in which case the other person is cited.

 The fine for a violation of the stop arm law can run from $100 to $500 and includes adding four points on the violator’s driver’s license.

 State education officials said the awareness campaign is a good time to remind drivers of what the rules are governing bus stop arms and flashing red lights.

  On a road of three lanes or less (which could include a turning lane), vehicles in both directions must stop when a school bus displays its stop arm. 

 On a road greater than three lanes, only those vehicles going in the same direction as the bus must stop. Bus routes are designed to prevent children having to cross multiple lanes of traffic to board a bus.

  A study by the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services indicated  that in a one-day national snapshot survey of more than 100,000 bus drivers in 2018, more than three out of every four of those drivers reported at least one stop arm violation that day.