BOISE, Idaho — This article originally appeared in the Idaho Press.
Every day, around 4,000 students from 45 different schools in the Boise School District take the bus to and from school, armed with backpacks filled with folders, textbooks and pencils. That’s not enough to keep them safe from cars.
In Idaho, driving past a school bus with its stop arm extended is a misdemeanor.
But that doesn’t stop people from blowing past the school bus stop signs.
This school year, Durham School Services, the bus service contracted with Boise School District, has reported around 400 stop arm violations, said Gary Hendrickson, Safety and Training Supervisor for Durham School Services. During the 2022-23 school year, there were 760 violations, and 500 during 2021-22, Hendrickson said. Next year, according to Hendrickson, Durham will also serve West Ada School District.
According to the Boise Police Department, anyone who violates this law will be fined $200 for the first offense, $400 for the second offense and $600 on the third offense, as long as the violations occur within five years of each other.
“We really don’t want to be putting criminal violations on people for something like this, but it is also really dangerous and really important to protect the kids when they’re around buses,” Garden City Police Cpl. Matt Biagi said in an interview with the Idaho Press.
If a road has three lanes or fewer, all traffic must stop when a bus extends its stop arm, Biagi said. If there are four or more lanes on a road, traffic driving in the opposite lanes are not required to stop, Biagi said.
And there are a “shocking” number of drivers who don’t stop when a school busses stop sign is out, Hendrickson said.
“We’re trying to save kids’ lives, because every year across the country kids are getting hit,” Hendrickson said. “We don’t want a tragedy. We don’t need to have a tragedy to start paying attention to this.”
According to the United States Department of Transportation, there were 1,009 fatal school transportation-related crashes from 2011 to 2020. Exactly 1,125 people of all ages were killed in those crashes, which equates to an average of 113 fatalities per year.
Durham works with local police departments, who receive emails from Hendrickson every time there is a violation. In those emails, Hendrickson attaches a violation report filled out by the bus driver and a clip capturing the violation, which is pulled from the bus cameras. This school year, BPD has investigated over 150 violations and Garden City has investigated five.
Violation investigations are dependent on a number of things: the severity of the violation, how visible the violator’s license plate numbers are and whether or not violators cooperate in the investigation process, Biagi said.
While this reporting system isn’t perfect, it results in around 50% of violators receiving a citation, Hendrickson said.
“Last year, we noticed that drivers seemed to be getting more aggressive,” Hendrickson said.
In more and more submitted clips, Hendrickson noticed kids attempting to cross the street while cars violating the stop arm zoomed past them.
“As a grandfather, some of these clips just make my stomach sick,” Hendrickson said.
While there are many reasons why this increase in violations is happening in Ada County, BPD says it’s all about drivers not paying attention or being distracted while driving.
“Knowing the law is really important,” Biagi said. “If you’re unsure as a driver if you should stop, it’s always safer to stop, and in a safe manner, and let the bus finish before you go.”
This article originally appeared in the Idaho Press, read more on IdahoPress.com.
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