PARAGOULD, Arkansas (KAIT) – The new school year has begun and the buses are ready to pick up students.
“Everyone is excited. The kids are excited. Ready to go,” said Chad Jordan, Greene County’s deputy engineering director.
The seats will soon be filled with students, so K8 News Report’s Alejandra Hernandez hopped on a bus and headed out to talk about the most important thing on school administrators’ minds.
“So, there are 11 seats on one side and 12 on the other. So there are a lot of students here,” Jordan said. “You have a bus driver trying to drive a bus and focus on the road.”
In Arkansas, the law requires drivers to stop at least thirty feet from a stopped bus.
However, Jordan said the reality is different.
“We have drivers who are sometimes unsure. Maybe they have never ridden a bus before and so they don’t know when to stop, or actually don’t know at all,” he said.
As we drove along Highway 412 in Paragould, the bus made a few stops to see what had happened. Drivers are required to stop in all lanes unless there is a specific lane in between.
A car drove through the stop sign despite flashing lights indicating an impending stop
“They didn’t stop,” Jordan said. “If there were children on the bus, they would have simply missed a stop sign.”
Jordan said drivers should not be surprised by the stop sign.
“We turn on our yellow lights to let traffic know we’re stopping before we turn on our red lights so people actually stop and come to a stop,” he said.
Other drivers knew what to do and stopped long before the sign appeared.
Jordan said bus drivers are required to drop students off on the right side of the road so they do not risk crossing a street or highway.
He said there are consequences for those who do not obey the law.
“The buses are equipped with a stopwatch camera, so if someone runs a red light, we get images of the vehicle passing by and are legally obliged to forward those images. So we contact our local police and our SRO,” he said, adding that the fine can be several thousand if caught.
Jordan went on to say that police can follow buses on busy routes and that while it may be tempting to keep your foot on the accelerator, doing so can prove costly in the long run.
“Some are in a hurry to get somewhere, but they understand that it’s about the safety of our children,” he said.
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