The good news from Ryan Quinn's Wednesday Gazette- Mail story about the new 6-foot-long school bus-stop arm extensions is that they appears to reduce, by 45 to 50 percent, the number of times a stopped school bus is passed by a driver.
The bad news is, according to a count last year on number of illegal school bus passes, that means drivers might still be passing stopped school buses loading or unloading children as many as 45 times a day in Kanawha County.
Kanawha County schools executive transportation director Brette Fraley says the county plans to buy the 10 arms it has been testing.
"I think they're effective, I think they've been very good for community awareness and I think they're something we'll work with in the coming years to see how they fit in our operation," Fraley told Quinn.
The problem with having to buy 10 $950 arms is that that's $9,500 the county school system doesn't have to spend on student education or other things to improve teaching.
The school system has already had to purchase cameras to record passing cars to provide images to media and law enforcement to slow the growing problem of drivers dangerously violating the law by passing a school bus loading or unloading children.
Many debates occur regularly about effective spending of taxpayer dollars by the school system, yet this necessary spending is due to a problem for which the school system has no control.
Ignorant, uncaring and inattentive drivers are causing a problem that risks death or severe injury to the community's children.
In order not to be part of the problem, drivers are reminded of the very clear regulation as written in the West Virginia Driver's Licensing Handbook:
"On all undivided highways (without a median), traffic in both directions must stop at least 20 feet from a stopped school bus that has its red lights flashing. You must not pass the bus until the lights are turned off or the bus starts moving.
"Motorists must also stop for school buses while the buses load or unload students on school property or private property."
It's really not that difficult. Don't be the one to cause school systems to spend money on things they shouldn't have to buy. Better yet, don't be the driver who - through distraction, negligence or just plain uncaring - kills a child on the way to or from school.