it's been that way in NY forever...
Posted on 08/27/2012 7:28:07 PM PDT by Altariel
DALLAS COUNTY (CBSDFW.COM) – According to Texas law, drivers must come to a complete stop when they see a school bus with its red lights flashing.
New technology will now make it easier to catch those violating the law in Dallas County.
As of Monday, Dallas County Schools and the City of Dallas are now using a high-tech program to protect students getting on or off school buses. Video cameras have been installed on the automated stop sign arm. The cameras are set up to identify license plates.
The recordings are later reviewed by a licensed police officer and offending motorist is issued a $300 ticket by mail.
Currently Dallas County Schools has a fleet of some 1650 buses, with more than half of those vehicles transporting the 60,000 students attending school in the Dallas Independent School District.
Warnings will be issued until the first week of September, and then tickets will be issued.
The stop arm camera program is the first of its kind in Texas.
If Stalin and Mao had this much power, China and Russia would still be mostly empty wastelands...
Personally, I think they should force every car within in a one-mile radius to stop any time a school bus is loading or unloading children.
Soon they’ll have the technology to accomplish this. Then I’ll feel better, knowing that my good thoughts helped to protect The Children. I will finally know that I am Morally Superior.
“Personally, I think they should force every car within in a one-mile radius to stop any time a school bus is loading or unloading children.”
Y ou are being a dope. I hope you know that...
We’ve always had to stop for buses here in Michigan. It sucks to follow one but kids aren’t the most watchful road crossers.
A couple years ago a kid in my hometown hit and killed a father who was throwing his child out of the way. The crazy thing is that the driver of the car was the bus diver’s son.
“It's to protect the children.” <- Always the excuse when they want to take more freedom and enact more big brother.
it's been that way in NY forever...
Under what state statute is this allowed? None that I’ve seen.
Makes sense to make people stop IF THE KID IS CROSSING THE STREET. Unfortunately, at least in TX, the dang sign goes out even if the kid just gets out of the door and walks up to the house. That’s ridiculous.
Said the guy who’s sarcasm detector is hopelessly broken?
Here in our Parish back in 2009, we had a school bus driver get picked up for DUI one night. He bonded out, then showed up on his route early the next morning, still loaded. He’s finally going to trial this October for the DUI, but although he’s been suspended, he was a tenured driver so he’s been pulling in $19K for the last three years.
http://www.katc.com/news/lafayette-school-bus-driver-suspended/
http://www.katc.com/news/lafayette-bus-driver-charged-with-dwi-goes-to-pretrial-nearly-three-years/
I’m fine with the cameras on the stop sign arm as long as the put an interlock on the steering wheel....
That's a false statement of the law, but what can you expect from the media.
I try to leave early enough so that I can sit and contemplate my navel if I must while school kids load.
God forbid that I should endanger them.
I’m seeing some little kids in their first year who are excited when they spot the bus up the road.
God Bless them! I remember fondly when my kids were that age. Those were good times.
I recall when Eleanor Tinsley raised the maximum fine for passing a stopped school bus in Houston to $1,000. Don’t know if that maximum still stands (it was in the 1990s).
My parents made a point of TEACHING ME HOW TO CROSS the street.
I still remember it. I was 5 years old, starting Kindergarten, and they let out a bit late, so the crossing guards went home prior. So we were all out there on our own - and we all survived. I still remember that I wouldn’t try crossing the (somewhat busy) street if there was a car within sight. That usually worked, until SOME IDIOT would stop and INSIST that I cross in front of him. I had trouble dealing with that.
By the way, the pedophiles were safely locked away back then, so no problem there.
Being a former bus driver myself, I don’t have a problem with it. All too often, several kids will live near each other in a neighborhood, and while they might normally get off the bus, and walk right up to their house, you never know when they might decide to (or be told to) visit a neighbor across the street, and they deviate from their usual routine.
Also, as pointed out elsewhere, kids are notorious for being poor decision makers, so they aren’t necessarily going to always do the right thing. Plus, they are taught that everyone is supposed to stop for the bus, so they make the assumption that what they were told is true.
Also, the nice thing about TX (at least in Dallas where I was) is that many of the larger surface streets are divided, with nice wide medians. You don’t have to stop if there’s a median separating you from the bus.
Here in York, Pennsylvania I see this more and more, you know they are going to stop soon but how soon remains the question, sometimes I think the bus drivers are deliberately doing this mess up the flow of traffic because nobody will pass them with the strobes flashing even if it legal.
They’re supposed to be using the yellow flashers as they come up on the stop. They’re trained to do it that way, or at least we were. It wakes up any distracted drivers before the red ones come on (you’d be surprised how often that happens early in the morning, especially for the really early runs). I forget the exact distance we were told, but it varied depending on the road and the location of the stop. It’s not so much for the drivers behind the bus, but mainly to gain the attention of any drivers coming the other way, who haven’t been behind the bus the whole way and therefore aren’t thinking “school bus”.
I see mailbox baseball is going to shift a bit.
I think we ought to get rid of all school buses entirely and require kids to go to schools locally to them. For environmental reasons, wasting less gas, reducing crashes where kids have no seat belts, and of we’re supposed to think and support local things, what better way than the local school.
Time to start using liberal logic against hypocritical liberals. No more compromise. Time to turn things back to normal.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.