The National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation released findings from its 6th annual National Stop Arm Violation Count that show an estimated 13 million motorists nationwide may illegally overtake school buses that are loading and unloading students over the course of a school year.
The voluntary survey recorded one-day counts of illegal passing incidents from the observations of 20 percent of the nation’s school bus drivers—more than 96,000—from 33 states and the District of Columbia this past spring. Drivers reported that vehicles illegally passed stopped school buses 74,421 times. Based on this number, during a typical 180-day school year, NASDPTS approximated there are more than 13 million illegal passings across the country.
“This survey captured only a fraction of the violations that bus drivers and traffic officers know all too well are occurring each and every day throughout the United States,” said Leon Langley, president of NASDPTS and the outgoing state director of transportation at the Maryland State Department of Education. “It verifies that, unfortunately, motorists continue to pass school buses at an alarming rate.”
Details of the report show that nearly all of the 2016 reported violations, 98 percent, occurred on the left or driver side of the bus. A total of 1,279 incidents were recorded on the right side of the bus, where students board and exit the bus, an especially dangerous traffic violation.
The report also found that 59 percent of the incidents occurred when oncoming motorists failed to stop for the bus. State traffic laws dictate that all traffic must come to a complete stop when a school bus activates its flashing red lights and stop arm to receive or discharge student passengers, unless a physical road or highway median is present.
While the number or reported illegal passing incidents this year is the lowest since the survey began in 2011, NASDPTS said in a statement that the results “have been unfortunately consistent. Last year, the study reported 75,518 illegal passes and 75,966 in 2014.
Langley added that the latest survey indicates “the importance of redoubling our efforts to educate the motoring public about the potentially tragic consequences of violating school bus stopping laws.”
Additionally, NASDPTS said its survey and others have led to several states adopting stricter laws on illegal school bus passings, increasing law enforcement patrols of areas with high rates of reported incidents, enhancing motorist education and implementing law or policies that allow school districts to install video cameras to record violations as evidence for prosecution.
Derek Graham, state director for North Carolina and one of the survey administrators for NASDPTS, will sit on an illegal passing and video enforcement panel at the STN EXPO and will discuss the survey findings more in depth.
