Update Dear Jon: Buses flashing red lights mean stop

Students are back at school and traffic safety is a hot topic, especially around school buses. You’ve probably seen buses flashing red lights often. Most people stop, as they should, but police say many don’t. Nick sent me a note, “Dear Jon, without fail everyday I see drivers that do not understand what the lights on the school bus mean, can you help?”

The Salinas Police department’s Sargent Gerry Ross says this issue continues to be a problem, “Officers are not going just give you a warning if you pass a bus with its red lights flashing.” For me, that’s warning enough.

When you see a school bus what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? Are you thinking, ‘There’s a road hog in my way!?’ Or do you see a bus as a vehicle carrying precious cargo, our children?

Ross says, “Think what you’re doing, slow down and pay attention. If you run over a child in your car or hurt that child or kill that child, that’s going to affect you, the driver, for the rest of your life.”

School bus safety involves more than students, their parents and bus drivers. The CHP says the motoring public are critical in this equation.

The CHP offers the following tips for drivers who encounter a school bus:

1. Never pass a stopped school bus with its red lights flashing.

2. Watch for children who cross in front of the bus when the bus is stopped.

3. Keep an eye out for children at bus stops.

4. Be aware of children running to bus stops.

Before the red lights come on and the stop sign deploys, the bus driver will turn on the yellow lights. Sgt. Ross says that’s a warning for drivers to slow down, “So when a driver sees the yellow lights come on, that means that the bus is preparing to stop. And that would indicated to the driver that they need to prepare to stop and they should begin slowing down so that they can come to a complete stop once the red lights start flashing.”

You may be thinking, ‘I know that!’ Still many drivers in Salinas are not stopping and it’s a recipe for disaster.

Bill Heath is the Transportation Director for Santa Rita School District, he says the California Department of Education asks departments like his to do a one day survey each year in April that logs incidences of drivers not stopping for buses, when the red lights are flashing.

Heath shared with me the survey for 2013 in his district. One bus driver reported 11 violations on his route in the morning and 34 in the afternoon. A total of 45 drivers illegally passed his bus that one day alone, with the red lights flashing. That’s just one bus, mind you.

In the 2014 survey, Heath says that number dropped to 15 for that day. Better, but still one is too many given the potential for catastrophe.

Sargent Ross says the fine if you’re cited is huge, “Typically the citation is $150, but when they put on taxes and court fees it can be easily be $500.”

Not worth it says Ross, he advises drivers leave home a little earlier, and prepared to wait two or three minutes for the bus to unload children.

And again, stop! In both direction on a two lane road, when the red lights are flashing.

You can email me with your question at ‘DearJon@KionRightNow.com”