Kids at risk when cars pass school buses; solutions are underway

( NewsNation ) — Extendable stop signs and flashing lights haven’t prevented more than 11,500 drivers from forging through intersections while students cross the street in Miami-Dade County , Florida.

With the 2024-25 school year barely underway, the Miami-Dade Police Department has seen about 1,600 school bus violations per day, officer and spokesman Angel Rodriguez said.  Although sobering, those numbers are just a margin of a larger national issue involving drivers who illegally pass school buses and put students’ safety at risk.

Nationwide, drivers illegally passed school buses about 251,000 times daily during the previous school year, resulting in more than 45.2 million violations, according to estimates from The National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services (NASDPT).

School buses are considered the safest mode of transportation, but they’re not exempt from accidents. Of the 42,939 total fatalities on U.S. roads in 2021, 108 were school transportation-related, said Meg Sweeney, a National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) project manager and accident investigator. People in other vehicles accounted for most of those deaths, while eight instances resulted in the deaths of people on board school vehicles.

“Children are more vulnerable when waiting at bus stops, loading or unloading,” said Brittany Rawlinson, an NTSB statistician and data and policy analyst.

Nearly all school-age pedestrian fatalities from 2013 to 2022 happened between 3 p.m. and 3:59 p.m., according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Those numbers represent real people and families forever changed. A February crash in Henry County, Georgia, became a moment of profound grief for the family of 8-year-old Adalynn “Addy” Pierce. A driver struck and killed the third-grade student as she crossed the street to board her school bus one Thursday morning.

Family and friends remember Addy as a creative and tender-hearted girl whose “eyes saw the people others overlooked.” With a strong sense of faith, her prayers for others were lengthy and meticulous, but her generous nature didn’t stop there. Addy created donation boxes to raise money for children with cancer and sold bracelets to help raise money for people in need. But she was also a child — one who enjoyed singing made-up songs and giggling when she couldn’t remember the lyrics and who would have been starting the fourth grade this year.

Now, her legacy continues through Addy’s Law. The measure took effect in July and requires public schools to plan bus routes so students don’t cross streets where the speed limit is more than 40 mph.

It also created a harsher punishment for drivers who illegally pass a school bus. Under Addy’s Law, the offense is now punishable by at least a $1,000 fine and as much as one year in jail.

The driver accused of hitting Addy is facing charges in connection with the girl’s death, and her case is ongoing. Authorities told local outlet WANF the bus had its stop sign out and its flashing lights were activated. The driver reportedly told police she didn’t see those warnings because her windows were foggy.

Back in Florida, the Miami-Dade Police Department said the reasons people illegally pass school buses vary. Some say they didn’t know the law, while others appear to have been in a hurry, Rodriguez said.

Regardless, the department is trying to make the commute to and from school safer by putting existing technology to work. More than 1,000 school buses in the county were already outfitted with dashboard cameras, which the department is now using to issue $225 citations to drivers who ignore school bus stop signs.

“It actually shows video of the vehicle passing,” Rodriguez said. “It takes a still of the image, which is then reviewed by our officers and determined if there is a violation that takes place. And then, as a result of that, the citation is issued to the registered driver.”

The effort began in April 2023, and although it’s too soon to measure its success, Rodriguez said similar models in other regions give him a hopeful outlook.

“In other places that have these types of cameras in place, there’s been an initial influx or initial high number of violators,” Rodriguez said. “And over time, those numbers have decreased. … We’re not seeking to place people in a dire financial situation, but people need to learn.”

Jeffrey Cassell, president of School Bus Safety Company, which sells bus driver training courses used across the country, said most drivers don’t realize they’re illegally passing a bus.

“It’s people who don’t normally go out during that time of the day, so they don’t know they have to stop or they’re distracted,” Cassell said. “Less than 1% consciously and deliberately drive past the stop signs.”

To that end, relying on the buses’ cameras might help detect violations, but it’s not guaranteed to prevent them, Cassell said.

More successful preventative measures include teaching children how to safely cross the street and employing a 72-inch stop arm that extends from the side of the bus while children are crossing, he said.

However, avoiding situations where children need to cross the street would be ideal, Cassell added.

“Of all the dangers and fatalities that occur in school buses, 60% are when kids cross the street,” he said. “It is the No. 1 issue by a country mile.”

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