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Please Stop For School Buses!

Schoolbus — Stock Photo

Herb Jensen is the the director of transportation for the Jordan School District and he is determined to find a way to stop a growing problem across the state: drivers who ignore stop signs and flashing red lights on school buses. “What is more precious than the life of a child?” Jensen said. He said can’t understand why drivers are in such a hurry, as they speed pass stopped buses where children are loading and unloading. “It’s alarming,” Jensen said. “It puts our kids in peril.” Utah State law states drivers must stop for buses when red flashing lights are activated. The bus stop sign is another reminder that drivers are required to stop, yet it seems nobody is following this law. “In my opinion, (it’s) blatantly wrong and extremely dangerous,” he said. He also notices that when one car passes his stopped bus, other cars tend to follow. In Jensen’s experience, many of the people who violate the law are parents. “Most parents would do anything in the world to protect their children, but they seem to have a complete disregard for protecting everyone else’s children,” he said. All of Jordan’s School District’s buses are wired with surveillance cameras that have captured many instances of cars failing to stop. To show how bad the problem has become, Jensen and others from school districts across Utah put together a one-day survey on November 9, 2016. Bus drivers watched and documented how many drivers failed to stop when they legally should have. In all, they tallied an astounding 1,468 violations in Utah in that one day. The data showed it’s a statewide problem.

Some of the number of violations documented in school districts include:

  • Granite School District documented 535 violations
  • Alpine School District documented 438 violations
  • Davis School District documented 154 violations
  • Jordan School District documented 56 violations

PLEASE STOP FOR SCHOOL BUSES!

 

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