California Law: Passing Stopped School Buses

CALIFORNIA — During a six-month period from August 2018 to March 2019, 12 children were killed and another 47 were injured while getting on and off school buses in the US. Bus stop-arms were extended at the time, which means that in California and the 49 others, motorists were required to come to a full stop.

There are some differences in the state law. California’s law requires: When the bus flashes red lights (located at the top front and back of the bus), you must stop from either direction until the children are safely across the street and the lights stop flashing.

The potential for fatal and injury accidents exists every day, according to the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services.

The Kansas Department of Education conducts a one-day count of school bus passing incidents every year. In its most recent count, it estimated that as many as 15 million vehicles could be improperly passing school buses transporting students each school year, gambling with children’s lives.

In a one-week period last fall, five children were killed and six were injured in five separate incidents involving drivers who passed stopped school buses. Three Rochester, Indiana, siblings — 6-year-old twins and their 9-year-old stepsister — were killed and another student was hurt on Oct. 29, 2018, while they were waiting for their school bus, which authorities said had its stop arm extended and lights flashing.

A day later, a 9-year-old boy in Mississippi was killed in the Tupelo suburb of Pratts while crossing a highway to catch the school bus. The driver accused of striking the child was arrested and charged with one count of aggravated assault.

On the same day, a kindergarten student in Tallahassee, Florida, was injured when he was struck by a car while crossing the street to board his school bus. The bus had extended the crossing arm, and the driver of the vehicle told police he realized too late that the bus had stopped.

On Nov. 1, five children were injured while waiting for the bus in Tampa, Florida. Two adults were also hurt when a vehicle heading eastbound hit the group. Witnesses said the driver of the vehicle had been speeding before the crash.

Also that day, a second-grade student was killed at a bus stop in a hit-and-run accident Tyrone, Pennsylvania. The boy was already dead when the bus driver pulled up to the stop and called 911, the Tyrone Area School District superintendent said in a statement of the hit-and-run accident.

States are taking various approaches to the problem.

For example, 22 states have now passed stop-arm camera laws to catch motorists who pass school buses when they’re stopped to pick up or let off children. They include Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming.

— Patch editors Beth Dalbey and Bea Karnes contributed to this story

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