I care! The other day the national news had a story where a child was hit and killed getting off of their school bus by someone running the stop sign.
Every bus driver has seen this and it happens every day. No this was not my child and it was-not your child. But it was someone’s child, someone’s brother or sister, someone’s grandchild, someone’s student. It could be a Dodge County child. When you see a school bus attempting to stop or stopped, it will have its flasher on and the stop sign out. STOP!
You do not know where that child is going; you do not know how many children are getting off that bus. I have certain stops that are bad enough that after the cars have stopped, I still pull my front wheel across the road because some of my students are slow getting off and the people in the car see one go across and are in a hurry and run my stop sign not knowing I have other children getting off also.
Just last week I tried to explain this to someone and because she knows nothing about driving a school bus, her answer was, “well then you need the law at those stops”. She, of course, was wrong because we do not have enough law enforcement to follow every bus to every stop.
No, it is up to you the driver to pay attention. When I am sure every child is across that road I then pull my bus over and do not put my stop sign in until I am ready for the driver to go. So please read this with an open mind and remember safety first. Just wait until we know we have let our students be free of danger before you take off because we held you back a minute or two. When you stop, everyone behind you has to stop, so help us out, put down the phone and watch closer during school hours.
We have a very stressful job driving school buses. The children want to play and yell and fuss and we have to concentrate on the next stop while keeping 50 or more students in their seats. Dodge County should be proud of their school bus drivers. Check out the records of how many students have been hurt on school buses. It makes us proud to be drivers.
We are not perfect all the time, but nether or you. Please stop when you see our sign.
Joanne Newlan
