Troopers Ride School Buses To Teach Drivers State Campaign Designed To Improve Safety For Children

Impatient drivers, beware. The school bus with its red lights flashing that you may want to pass illegally could have a state trooper on board.

Trooper Craig Jacobson took a ride Wednesday with Marysville School District driver Lyn Lemmons in her 48-passenger Blue Bird diesel bus.

The trooper’s trip on the school bus was the beginning of a campaign in Snohomish County to try to improve safety. The idea came about after a 13-year-old Lakewood girl was killed last fall while boarding a stopped bus with flashing lights, said Sgt. Jim Lever of the Washington State Patrol.

A child is struck by a vehicle in a schoolbus loading zone about three times a year in this state, said Jonna Van Dyke, a spokeswoman for the state Traffic Safety Commission.

One of Jacobson primary goals is to gather information about where and how motorists endanger students’ safety.

So far, the biggest problems seem to be excessive speed and drivers not paying attention, said Lever, who is planning the safety program.

On Wednesday, Jacobson was equipped with two types of portable radar to clock the speeds of passing motorists, and a radio to contact Trooper Langdon Bohart, who followed at a discreet distance behind the bus on his motorcycle.

The information will be used to make recommendations, possibly about improved signs at intersections and bus stops, bus equipment, or areas that local law enforcement agencies could patrol more frequently to encourage motorists to slow down or stop.

All school districts in the county will be invited to participate in the State Patrol program, and ride-along troopers will be assigned to monitor bus routes that have the greatest problems, Jacobson said.

The two troopers didn’t issue any citations Wednesday. No one sped past Lemmons’ bus when its red lights flashed and its stop sign was out.

Jacobson’s radar showed that about one-third of the drivers who passed the bus were traveling 5 mph or more over the speed limit, but none was going fast enough to be driving recklessly.

Marysville’s bus drivers report more than 100 flagrant violations a year, said Joseph Legare, the district’s transportation supervisor.

From her seat at the front of the bus, Lemmons said she sees two classes of violators.

“There are the ones who just aren’t paying attention, like they’re driving along and going over their grocery lists,” she said. “You nail them with the air horn, and they always stop” and often apologize.

An 11-year school-bus driver, Lemmons said that several times she has had to jump out of her seat “to grab a kid by the back of the shirt” to keep him or her from walking into the path of a driver who appeared to be knowingly, flagrantly ignoring the stop lights and sign.

Lemmons said she has seen motorists who are confused about what to do on multiple-lane highways.

When the red lights flash, motorists going either way on a two-lane road must stop. But when there are three or more lanes, only those motorists heading in the same direction as the bus must stop.

“People should remember that where there are buses, there are kids, and sometimes kids don’t always do the predictable thing,” Lever said.