HANCOCK COUNTY — One stop at a time: That’s the motto for school bus drivers and transportation officials at Southern Hancock schools.
For over 30 years, Marty Wiseman has been a bus driver for the district. Her priority is making sure students get on and off her bus safely.
Her route is dangerous. She makes several stops along U.S. 40 — a four lane highway — where she’s seen more than her fair share of school bus stop-arm violations.
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Click here to purchase photos from this gallery“They can go past you both ways there,” she said. “It’s upsetting because I’m trying to focus on the child.”
New attention is focusing on school bus safety in the wake of an accident last fall in Rochester in which three children were killed by a vehicle whose driver didn’t heed the flashing lights and the stop sign extended from the side a school bus. The driver told police she didn’t realize the bus had stopped in the opposite of lane of State Road 25 in Fulton County.
Wiseman, like every other school bus driver who has watched motorists disregard a stop arm, was heartbroken.
“How can they not notice us?” Wiseman said. “We’re a big bright yellow bus with flashing lights.”
Official data about reckless driving at school bus stops is sparse but suggestive of a dangerous problem: In a one-day survey of more than 7,600 bus drivers statewide last April, there were more than 3,000 stop-arm violations.
Now, state legislators are considering a bill that would demand harsher consequences for drivers who disregard stop arms on stopped school buses. Senate Bill 2 also would prohibit school bus routes that require a child to cross a federal or state route, unless no safe alternative is available. Bus drivers would also be required to load or unload children as close to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway as possible.
The legislation, sponsored by state Sen. Randy Head, R-Logansport, in whose district the Rochester accident occurred, would also allow school officials to petition authorities to reduce speed limits around bus stops. Bus arm violators would face a Class C misdemeanor, rather than a Class A infraction under current law.
Penalties would also become more severe for a driver who recklessly passes a school bus when its arm is extended and causes injury. The charge would be elevated from a Class A misdemeanor to a Level 6 felony, meaning a violator could be sent to prison.
Reviewing bus routes is something officials in the Greenfield-Central Community School Corporation have been doing for years, Superintendent Harold Olin said.
G-C is already striving to heed the very language suggested in the bill: keeping students from crossing state and federal roads, Olin said.
“I support the idea of raising the penalty for running a safety arm of a school bus,” Olin said.
He would also like to see state legislators take the issue a step further by offering a funding mechanism, such as a grant, to add cameras to all bus stop arms.
Many school buses in the county have cameras in the cabin but do not have cameras on the stop arms outside the bus.
Meanwhile, officials are evaluating safety. Officials in Southern Hancock, for example, evaluate all their stops — an estimated 693,000 per year.
They’ve already set up routes to have zero students crossing federal and state highways, but they do have more than 106,500 yearly stops in which students cross county roads and subdivision streets.
Part of the proposed legislation would require a court to suspend driving privileges for first-time offenders for 90 days and one year for repeat offenders. Each school that provides student transportation would have to review their school bus routes and safety procedures annually.
“Any time you can bring attention to the issue, that’s a good thing,” said Bob Martin, Southern Hancock’s transportation director.
Martin likes to know when a stop-arm violation occurs and asks his drivers to report incidents via radio as soon as they happen.
Law enforcement officials are linked to school district radios, said Wes Anderson, Southern Hancock public relations director. Law enforcement officials can hear when a violation is reported, so if they’re nearby, they can try to find the driver.
Maj. Bobby Campbell, chief deputy for the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department, said if bus drivers can get the license plate of an offender, officers will be able cite the registered owner of the vehicle. But in most cases, bus drivers are focused on the children and not getting a license number.
So, many violators get away with it unless it happens right in front of a police officer or sheriff’s deputy.
Enhancing safety for children at bus stops is important, Campbell said, and he’s glad to see state legislators evaluating the issue.
“There is most definitely a need for people to pay more attention,” Campbell said. “That’s the whole aspect of driver safety.”
Shortening stops also might help. Southern Hancock officials have assigned bus seats to students and have tried to be proactive, shortening bus routes where possible to help keep motorists caught behind schools buses from becoming impatient.
“In general, we’re doing all we can do,” Anderson said.
It’s now up to state officials to take things to the next level, he said by holding irresponsible drivers more accountable.
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3,082: Number of stop-arm violations reported by drivers in 201 Indiana school districts in a single day earlier this year.
554,760: Multiplied by 180 school days, the number of stop-arm violations that realistically occur in a school year statewide.
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