I am writing this letter in response to the Sept. 7 article written by Richard Russell titled “Don’t drive distracted, because kids often are.”
I absolutely agree with the topic of this article warning drivers to be more cautious on the roads during the school year.
As mentioned in the article, there are always new schools opening around the country and new parking areas for old schools, so drivers must not become too comfortable with their routes since there could be children anywhere.
We can see how drivers often become too comfortable with their routes in situations when a new stop sign or speed limit is added on the roads and those drivers will not clue in right away.
This could mean a driver accidentally missing a stop sign, but with children crossing roads in unsafe locations it could mean a driver not stopping for them and putting them at risk.
The author also mentions that parents do not do a good enough job to teach their kids how to safely cross roads, which further proves that drivers must drive with extra care since there could be children crossing roads anywhere, not just at crosswalks where you would expect, so awareness is key.
This goes to show that drivers need to operate their vehicles with more caution during school hours and the author made some great points to draw attention to this fact.
Before this year I have heard plenty of stories about vehicles passing stopped buses and injuring children or nearly doing so, but I had never witnessed it.
After learning about the consequences of doing so and how they have become more severe in recent years through the driver education program, I didn’t think I would ever see it happen, but in just the first two days of classes this year, I witnessed two cars pass my bus while other students were getting off.
Luckily nobody was hurt, but that’s just thanks to lucky timing.
Now that I drive myself to and from school every day with my own car, I have a completely different perspective of the subject.
I now understand how it can be overwhelming for drivers to have to be on the constant lookout for children and school buses after a long summer without them.
That is not an excuse for drivers to throw caution to the wind, but when it is a matter of forgetting to focus on the students and buses, something really should be done to ensure nobody forgets about safety.
One thing that I would like to see on school buses is a longer stop bar that actually extends across the opposite lane of the road so cars cannot drive past.
I have heard of bus drivers who actually block off the entire road with their bus, but that seems much less practical than just swinging a bar over to do the job.
Buses already have bars that extend forward, but they don’t seem to be very effective, and I don’t see why they couldn’t be made to block the vacant lane on roadways.
It is a simple fix in design that would probably deter drivers from passing buses illegally while vulnerable children are at risk.
In closing, this article was a great lesson to everyone on the topic of safety in environments filled with young students and school buses, and I completely agree that not only do drivers need to pay closer attention while on the roads during the school year.
There should also be more effort made to improve the safety of everyone, and parents should do a better job of teaching their children how to get to school safely.
Nick Blanchard is a Grade 11 student at Three Oaks Senior High School
