Will lawmakers listen? Schools want laws, stiffer penalties, funding to make busing safer
Seth Slabaugh
MUNCIE, Ind. — State police Sgt. Jeff Zeiger follows closely behind school buses on four-lane Ind. 32 east of Muncie on a regular basis, looking for motorists who illegally pass buses when they stop.
He has ticketed the majority of the 39 drivers cited into Muncie City Court so far this year for the class A infraction, punishable by a fine of up to $10,000.
"It's everybody," he says of the illegal passers. "I've had professional nurses, teachers, factory workers, moms taking kids to school, grandparents picking kids up from school. Most say they didn't know they had to stop. A second reason is they didn't see the bus, as hard as that is to believe."
Motorists are warned when a bus stops to pick up or drop off children: flashing amber lights followed by flashing red lights and a stop arm.
Zeiger's wife understands how dangerous it can be: Her vehicle was rear-ended (and totaled) when she stopped for a school bus on the same stretch of highway her husband patrols.
Stop-arm violations were the foremost safety concern — but there are others — of officials at a dozen Indiana schools, both large and small, urban, suburban and rural, interviewed for this article in a collaborative reporting effort by the five Indiana newspapers in the USA TODAY Network.
State lawmakers during their 2019 session will consider bills aimed at making school bus loading/unloading safer after the deaths of three children at a bus stop in northern Indiana the day before Halloween.
"I know that stop-arm violations have been a hot topic for a number of years at the state Legislature, but nothing ever seems to get done about it," said Mark Campbell, assistant superintendent at Centerville-Abington Community Schools in Wayne County. "We participate in an annual stop-arm violation (survey) and the results consistently show an average of 3,000 violations in a single day in Indiana."
► See the survey results: Illegal passing of school buses, summary results
Three-thousand violations per day times a 180-day school year totals 540,000 violations per year.
"I have a huge, 45-foot yellow vehicle with flashing lights, all the things that make it as identifiable as possible, but people still disregard the stop arm," said James Hanna, superintendent of Rossville Consolidated Schools in Clinton County.
Jason Woebkenberg, a spokesman at Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp., said, "What scares us more than anything is people who are driving in a distracted fashion … That's what keeps us up at night in terms of bus safety … In terms of what we'd love to see state legislators do, obviously stiffer penalties for people who run the stop arm."
► Know this: When should you stop for a bus?
Zach McKinney, transportation director at Hamilton Southeastern Schools at Fishers, finds it "troublesome that there isn't a harsher penalty already" for stop-arm violations. "Just like every school district around the state and country, adding a stop-arm camera to the bus is not something we can afford. I would love to see some safety grants coming out."
Stop-arm cameras mounted on buses are capable of capturing images and video of the make, color, license plate, date and time of vehicles (and sometimes the face of the driver) that illegally pass stopped buses.
What happens when cameras exist?
Officials at Lebanon Community School Corp. — one of the few districts that already has equipped all of its buses with surveillance cameras — are awaiting a judge's verdict in the bench trial of a motorist accused of ignoring a stop-arm.
At trial in a Boone County Superior Court, the defendant testified his mother-in-law was the one driving the vehicle. The prosecution noted that the defendant didn't call the mother-in-law to testify — and said it would have ticketed her if she had been present to corroborate his defense. The prosecution also argued that Indiana law allows the vehicle owner to be charged, even if someone else was driving it, said Jen Todderud, the school's communications director.
Stop-arm violations in Boone County carry a fine and court costs totaling $235.
Getting the names of violators published in the news columns of the newspaper is under consideration in the Lebanon community, Todderud said.
On Oct. 31, the day after three school children were killed by a motorist while crossing over a state highway to board a school bus north of Rochester, three motorists were caught on camera ignoring stop arms on buses in the Lebanon school district. It disturbed Todderud that motorists violated the law while those three fatalities were "fresh on our minds."
► Details on Rochester accident: Driver in fatal bus crash that killed three kids charged
Three simultaneous errors led to deaths
Sen. Randy Head, R-Logansport, expects stop-arm violation bills to be among the school-bus-safety measures filed during the 2019 session of the Indiana General Assembly.
During an interview, Head acknowledged that having cameras on the bus would not have saved the lives of 6-year-old twins Xzavier and Mason Ingle or their sister, Alivia Stahl, 9, at Rochester. A fourth child, Maverick Lowe, 11, was injured.
"A camera in that case would just give us a photo of her running the stop arm and running over the children," the senator said.
The school bus driver, Robert Reid, 46, Claypool, stopped on Ind. 25 outside a mobile home park and waved the children to cross the highway. There was a line of children. Some had safely reached the door of the bus. Some were still in line behind the four children who were struck by an oncoming Toyota Tacoma pickup truck driven by Alyssa Shepherd, 24, of rural Rochester. Reid blew the horn to get Shepherd to stop to no avail. She has been charged with reckless homicide.
"Cameras won't solve the problem," says Chris Walls, president of Ohio-based School Bus Safety Co., a firm that designs school-bus-training programs. "I believe the key to reducing fatalities is education and training."
► ISP in 2015: No evidence enforcement is effective
A graduate of Indiana Wesleyan University and former transportation director at Indianapolis Public Schools, Walls was attending the National Association for Pupil Transportation annual conference in Kansas City when he learned of the grim fatalities at Rochester.
Three breakdowns had to occur or those children would not have died, he said.
"First, if the driver of the bus had waited until the oncoming vehicle had stopped, all three children would still be alive and the fourth child would not have been hurt," Walls said. " … the bus driver in this situation flagged the kids to cross the street. Industry best practice tells you students are not supposed to be flagged on until the bus driver sees the oncoming vehicle physically stop … You wait until you physically see if the car is going to stop."
The bus driver told police he saw the headlights of a vehicle coming around a bend in the highway, but they were far back and had plenty of time to slow down, so he waved to the children, telling them to cross.
"Second, if the driver of the pickup truck had identified the lights on the bus, all three children would be alive today and the fourth child would not have been hurt," Walls said.
Shepherd told police she couldn't make out what the bus was in the pre-dawn darkness until it was too late.
"Last, if the kids had looked both ways and not stepped into the street … It took all three of those breakdowns to occur simultaneously for those fatalities to occur," said Walls, the parent of three children in the same age range as those who died. "That's why training and education are important."
Walls emphasized he's not blaming the children. He's saying that, for their own safety, any children crossing the street should look both ways — and have been taught to look both ways — rather than rely solely on what the bus driver does
"Any time a student crosses the street, if they take the initiative to look both ways the way we teach kids to do, there should never be an occurrence where they are hit by a car," Walls went on.
Statistically, children ages five to nine are much more likely to be killed during a crossover, which raises the question of whether or not younger children should be trusted to cross the street by themselves.
Walls cites California as the state leading the way in preventing crossover fatalities.
There, the driver stops the bus, activates the red lights and stop arm, shuts off the engine, removes the key, leaves the bus and escorts the children across the street to or from the bus, while carrying a stop sign, acting like a crossing guard.
However, only 10 percent of California students ride the school bus, compared to about 65 percent of Hoosier children.
The stiffest penalty Walls knows of for illegal passing is a $5,000 fine and driver's license suspension for three months at Prince Edward Island, a province in eastern Canada.
Home-side only bus stop law needed again?
Michael LaRocco, who is the director of school transportation at the Indiana Department of Education, believes there are multiple ways to help prevent future tragedies, including public service announcements, other aggressive public information campaigns to get the attention of inattentive motorists, installing stop-arm cameras to record illegal passers and adding lighting to buses.
Eighteen states, including Ohio, have approved the use of the Gardian Angel flood light system on buses. It illuminates a path for children crossing the street so traffic can clearly see them.
► At the Statehouse: Lawmakers look at stop-arm cameras, other ways to improve safety
Indiana considered approving Gardian Angel lights a couple of years back but decided against it because of a dispute between state officials and the company. Guardian Angel lights are designed to automatically turn on when the red lights on a bus are activated. Indiana officials wanted a switch to be installed to allow bus drivers to activate the lights manually, fearing that automation would make drivers complacent. Gardian objected on grounds of the potential for human error. As a result of the dispute, the matter was tabled.
"This incident didn’t need to happen," Gardian Angel's Steve Gardner said recently of the Rochester fatalities. "Especially since the motorist said she couldn’t tell it was a bus. Very frustrating. That poor family. Our hearts go out to them. So I really hope the Indiana school bus committee and public hears that there is a solution that already exists and is proven to work."
In the 2017-18 school year, six children nationally died during school bus loading and unloading. Three were struck by vehicles while crossing the street, including one who was running to catch the bus. Two were run over by school buses as they crossed in front of the bus, and one was running to catch the bus when he tripped and fell under its rear dual wheels.
It's common for Indiana school districts to pick up students on highways and country roads where traffic is at least 55 mph.
"There was a law … that school buses have to pick up on the right-hand side where practical, but it was taken off the books (in 2015)," Sen. Head said. "My bill will contain something to put that back on." He didn't know why the law was removed.
School buses at Northeastern Wayne Schools, in Fountain City, make stops on U.S 27, U.S. 35, and Ind. 227.
"We try to pick up curbside, but a few times they may have to cross in front of the bus," Superintendent Laura Blessing said. "We make each of these stops as safe as possible."
No crossing until traffic stops
Ron Chew, president of the Indiana State School Bus Drivers Association, opposes legislation that "micromanages" how school districts pick up students.
If the state requires districts to pick up and drop off students only on the side of the road that they live on, aka home-side stops, so they don't have to cross the road, "the thing that worries me is the cost involved," he said.
"If we have to make routes all on the door side, those buses will have to go down the road, turn around and come back on the same road," Chew went on. "It's much more costly, more wear and tear, more pay for the driver, and a longer time on the bus for kids, which parents don't like. Some districts already are struggling to finance transportation. If you do away with transportation systems, riding in a personal vehicle is 70 to 80 times more dangerous than riding on a school bus."
Chew's own bus route in the South Henry School Corp., Straughn, includes highway stops.
"I don't allow kids to cross the street until traffic is stopped," he said. "Even if I have to wait two or three minutes. If I see a vehicle coming from a half mile or three-quarters of a mile away, I stay right there on the road. The drivers behind me get impatient, but I'm not too concerned about those people."
Chew is a proponent of cameras on buses but says "we need legislation put in the Indiana code to penalize those people for doing that." He's also glad to hear that the Legislature will at least consider converting all of Indiana to the Central Time Zone.
"If it had been daylight, maybe that wouldn't have occurred," he said of the Rochester fatalities.
"Picking up students in the dark and picking students up during inclement weather are some of our major concerns," said Chris Winchell, superintendent of Union County College Corner Schools.
Indiana's state school bus committee, of which Chew is a member, this past week discussed "the lack of continuity" of law enforcement against illegal passers from county to county, he said. "Not all counties, not all prosecutors, deal with it the same. We did discuss that at great length."
The committee doesn't meet again until March.
86-year-old motorist calls for signage
Of the 39 people cited into Muncie City Court so far this year for illegally passing a stopped school bus, 22 were female and 17 were male. They ranged in age from 19 to 85.
The 85-year-old, Mary Buffington, a Muncie resident, who is still employed, as an office worker at a Christian ministry, is now 86. She was not at all happy about being ticketed by a state policeman on Ind. 32 east of Muncie. She says he was stern and rejected her plea to get off with a warning.
Buffington was headed in the opposite direction of the bus on the four-lane highway. She was in the outside lane and the bus was in its outside lane, so there were two lanes between them.
"I slowed down, and I never would have gone around him if I was behind him," she said. "In 70 years of driving I have never once been stopped by a cop. I thought with my record he should have given me a warning. He must have been trying to reach his quota. But it's in the past now, and it did make me more careful."
Buffington thinks the state should post a sign on Ind. 32 similar to one that she has seen on multiple-lane Ind. 3 in New Castle. "They have a sign that says all lanes must stop for school buses," she said.
Acting on the advice of someone in the city clerk's office, Buffington asked for and obtained an agreement for withheld prosecution from the prosecutor's office. It still cost her $82.50 in court costs and a $110 prosecutor's deferral fee, but it didn't cost her any points on her driving record. (Twenty points will result in a one-month suspension of driving privileges).
Most of the 38 others who were ticketed admitted to the class A infraction, an eight-point violation, and were fined $75 plus court costs, currently set at $135.50. It's unclear why the standard fine in Muncie is $75. The maximum is $10,000.
Two others — a Ball State University student and a 39-year-old registered nurse — also received withheld prosecution, while another denied committing the infraction on Ind. 32. The alleged offense occurred on Feb. 19. A pre-trial conference is scheduled for Jan. 3.
Buffington's actions wouldn't have been against the law in Illinois, where, if you're traveling in the opposite direction of a school bus on a roadway with four or more lanes, you should drive cautiously but don't have to stop.
On the other hand, Illinois has a far tougher law than Indiana if you pass a stopped bus on a two- or three-lane route: automatic suspension of your driver's license for three months for a first offense, longer for subsequent convictions.
Jeff Zeiger, the Indiana State Police sergeant who patrols Ind. 32 east of Muncie, defends Indiana's law, which applies to all roadways except those that are divided by a physical barrier or grassy median. On a divided roadway, only vehicles traveling in the same direction as the school bus are required to stop in the Hoosier state.
"Even if a student is not crossing a four-lane highway, you don't want cars driving by at 50 miles per hour plus when a school bus is loading or unloading," Zeiger said. "You never know when a child might take off across the road because something blows out of their hand. It's also better if all cars stop. It avoids confusion. Otherwise, some cars will stop and some won't, which could lead to an accident."
In 2015, Zeiger told The Star Press: "In today's society everyone is in a hurry. We've been pretty lucky. Unfortunately, until you have a tragedy, that's the publicity that usually gets people's attention."
Is public awareness the key?
Rush County Schools funded a billboard campaign that started last month in connection with its "Stop for the Bus - STOP for Us" operation.
At Jay School Corp., a countywide school district based in Portland, bus drivers travel on six state highways. Nearly two dozen routes have highway stops. The district has made no changes to routes following the Rochester tragedy because it already had a policy of home-side-only pickup and delivery for all highway stops.
► Get educated: Indiana school transportation laws and regulations
But after the deadly incident, Jay students were reminded by drivers of safety protocols and parents and caregivers were cautioned on Facebook.
The district's transportation director, Teresa Myers, said stop-arm violations remain her top safety concern. "We need the state to provide us the financial support to pay for the stop-arm cameras," she said. "We need stiffer penalties for stop-arm violators."
But "awareness is the biggest asset to all," she went on. Something positive that came out of the fatalities is "I believe we have had an increase in awareness in our community. Everyone is conscious of the big yellow bus right now. Hopefully the awareness remains."
(Jason Truitt at the Richmond Palladium-Item, Emma Kate Fittes at Indy Star, Jillian Ellison at the Journal & Courier in Lafayette, and Megan Erbacher at the Courier & Press in Evansville contributed to this article).
Contact Seth Slabaugh at seths@muncie.gannett.com