School in Kanawha County starts Monday, meaning motorists will once again see bright yellow school buses picking up and dropping off youngsters.
Although parents, teachers and bus drivers work hard to make sure our schoolchildren are safe, many times motorists ignore the law and pass stopped school buses, putting those kids in harm’s way.
But a pilot program in Kanawha, Cabell and Greenbrier counties outfits school buses with six-foot-long extensions on existing stop signs, the Gazette-Mail’s Ryan Quinn reported. The hope is the sign will then reach into the other lane of traffic, letting drivers headed the opposite direction know they, too, need to stop when the bus stops.
Each county participating in the pilot program will receive 10 free extensions that have Teflon breakaway bolts that allow the sign to snap off when it is hit with at least 80 pounds of pressure.
“They’ll learn not to do it again,” Jerry Young, crew leader of electronic technicians for the Kanawha district’s transportation department, said of motorists who might illegally pass a stopped school bus and come into contact with one of the extensions.
Let’s hope so. Kanawha and Cabell counties are participating in the program because they reported drivers illegally passing stopped school buses 90 and 35 times, respectively, in a single day last school year. That’s 90 times a child could have been hit and severely injured or killed simply by stepping off his or her school bus.
The pilot program will last a couple of weeks in each county, and county boards can then decide if they want to purchase extensions for each bus in their fleets. They aren’t cheap, costing about $950 each, but one Kanawha County Schools official said drivers illegally passing buses is a growing problem these mechanisms could help address.
Parents send their children to school with the expectation that he or she will return home safe at the end of the day. Yes, $950 is a hefty price to pay to outfit one bus with these extensions, but the lives of our children are priceless.
It’s unfortunate these stop sign extensions are needed to begin with. Mature, adult drivers should know to follow the law and stop whenever they see a stopped school bus. That’s not the reality, however.
Let’s all work together to ensure our children are transported to and from school safely.