‘That’s a daily struggle’: Alarming video raises concerns of drivers dodging stopped school bus warnings
By Marlee Ginter
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SACRAMENTO, California (KOVR) — Video from a camera on the stop-arm of a Sacramento City Unified School District bus shows a nerve-racking near-miss.
The driver of a white van could be seen disregarding a stopped school bus with a stop sign and flashing lights until it nearly hits someone crossing the road.
The bus driver and dispatcher, Olivia Minor, sees it time and again.
“My heart stops, literally,” said Minor. “Unfortunately, that’s a daily struggle for a lot of our bus drivers. This is reality.”
She says he doesn’t see her job as just transporting students. She considers them like her own.
“You don’t understand. When you get your assignment at the beginning of the year, these kids become your own. You clean their faces, you wipe their boogers. If they throw trash, you pick it up,” said Minor.
But making it harder for drivers like Minor to keep kids safe, a new study shows drivers disregard stopped buses and their warnings every day.
“Essentially, these programs demonstrate how we can hold reckless drivers accountable for their actions,” said Jean Souliere, CEO and founder of BusPatrol.
BusPatrol is a safety technology company that just ran a pilot program with Sacramento City Unified bus drivers. Five school buses were equipped with stop-arm cameras from November to February to record how often motorists ignore them — 387 vehicles illegally passed stopped school buses loading and unloading children.
“It’s about more than a camera, more than a ticket. It’s about awareness. It’s about education,” said Souliere.
Minor is urging drivers to pay attention to those flashing lights and heed the school bus stop-arms so she can get your kids back home to you safely.
“How are you going to live your life knowing that you took a little student’s life away?” Manor said. “Because it happens.”
District officials say this pilot program really only captured a fraction of the problem and shows that more needs to be done.
Bottom line, drivers need to learn that bus stop-arms mean stop. Advocates are now pushing for more stop-arm cameras on school buses to catch those who don’t.
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