The importance of school bus saftey

Please read. It’s important.

I’m not trying to beat a dead horse here. I’m trying to take time to address a very real problem in our city that is always on my mind. – Every week, people in our city drive their cars past school busses that have their stop arms out, and that is both illegal and dangerous.

Most of them don’t go on Facebook and tell everyone that they did it, but more of them complain about it if they get caught and cited for it than I ever realized until I became mayor and understood how bad/how much.

Our bus drivers and our police do everything that they can to deter this behavior and catch anyone who does it, but ultimately what is needed is for everyone with a driver’s license to understand how important it is to not break this law. No matter how late you will end up.

There is so much I’m proud about when it comes to our city, but when we have as many as thirty or more stop arm violations in a single week, I’m embarrassed and I’m truly scared that one day a child is going to die.

It has to become zero per week. Every week.

I can’t do it alone. Our bus drivers and our police can’t do it alone either. We need everyone to actually care.

It’s not enough to just know that there’s nothing funny about it and it’s not an issue to be ” just trolling” about.

I want to see us get to zero per week. I hope that you do too. Think about how to drive and consider if there’s changes you might need to make to make sure you’re not distracted while driving. Talk to your kids about the same if they’re new drivers. Remember that wherever you’re traveling, you play a role in keeping people safe.

I don’t have all the answers and I’m not perfect either. I’m writing this because it is so seriously important. I know that there’s been a pretty public situation in Portage 411 about this, and I’ve stated my opinion on that particular situation publicly in that group already.

But we don’t have just one person in our city who has done this particular crime, though. If any real good can come from this point, let’s please move forward on the goal of everyone here resolving to bring this kind of dangerous behavior to an end here once and for all.

I’m well aware that it doesn’t just happen in Portage, but let’s work on being a city where it doesn’t happen.