An education panel in the New Jersey state assembly advanced Bill A-1455 on Monday, which intends to increase school bus safety by detecting the presence of students in the bus’ danger zone.
If passed, the bill would be known as Abigail’s Law and would require newly-manufactured school buses driven in New Jersey to have motion sensors to alert drivers as to the presence of people or objects passing in front or behind of the school bus.
The bill, sponsored by assembly Democrats Gabriela Mosquera and Patrick Diegnan, was written in response to the 2003 death of Abigail Kuberiet in Diegnan’s hometown of South Plainfield. The two-year-old died after being struck by a school bus she was standing in front of. The bus driver did not see her and was reportedly unaware that he had hit her.
“The use of available technology will facilitate safe driving and prevent fatal accidents,” said Diegnan. “When an alarm sounds if a child is in the vicinity of the bus, the operator will immediately be made aware of the situation and will not move forward, and a life will be saved.”
Mosquera added that no matter how much preventive education is circulated, safety technology on the school bus is still crucial. “Regardless of how much we teach the importance of school bus safety to children, accidents can happen in just the blink of an eye,” said Mosquera. “Putting sensors on buses simply is an additional step that can help reduce the likelihood of an accident and keep children in New Jersey safe.”
Diegnan also told WBGO that he has tried to get other versions of the bill passed for several years, but received initial pushback due to potential costs of adding the sensors to existing school buses.
“The original bill said that it would on all buses, and they pushed back and said no that would be costly. So then we said how about just newly manufactured buses? The good news is I have not gotten any pushback this time and hopefully it will get through,” he said.
