Officials continue to stress dangers of illegally passing school buses

Springville, N.Y. (WBEN) - School officials continue to work with school transportation professionals, the governor's Traffic Safety Committee, law enforcement officials, and state and local leaders on Operation Safe Stop, a cooperative effort to educate the public about the dangers of passing stopped school buses.

The goal of Operation Safe Stop is simple: Bring students to school safely every morning, and get them home safely every afternoon.

"When a school bus stops, you stop," said John Spacht, president of the New York Association for Pupil Transportation (NYAPT).

"Our drivers receive extensive training. Our buses undergo regular DOT inspections. We teach students safe loading and unloading procedures. But there is one thing that we cannot control behind the steering wheel of the bus: The decisions that are made by the motorists around us. A bus driver can do everything correctly, a student can follow every safety instruction. Yet, one impatient or distracted motorist can change a family's life forever."

It is estimated that motorists will illegally pass a stop school bus in New York State around 50,000 times on any given day. However, the state's historical school bus fatality analysis between 1960 and 2025 has 28 children that have lost their lives after being struck by passing motorists.

"That's 28 children who never made it home. 28 families whose lives were forever changed," Spacht said. "Those children were not statistics; they were sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, grandchildren. They had friends. They had birthdays to celebrate, milestones to reach, and futures with possibilities. And for their families, no traffic ticket, no fine, no enforcement campaign can ever replace what was lost. We talk about 50,000 violations every school day, but we should never forget those 28 lives."

Springville-Griffith Institute Central School District superintendent James Bialasik says every school district is facing the exact same obstacle: An increasingly distracted driving public in far too much of a hurry.

"Research shows that even a hands-free phone conversation behind the wheel causes a driver inattention blindness. This cuts a driver's field of vision in half. Let me say that again: You only see half of what's in front of you. When you realize that, it's not hard to understand why people claim they just didn't see the flashing red lights on a giant 40-foot school bus," said Bialasik on Wednesday outside the district's bus garage in Springville.

Local law enforcement officials have been stepping up measures to crack down on motorists who are in violation of passing a stopped school bus with its stop arms out and red lights flashing.

"The minimum fine for passing a school bus is $250. That fine increases substantially with each subsequent offense. The Erie County Sheriff's Office does not negotiate when it comes to the safety of our community's children," said Erie County Sheriff's Lt. Jeremy Lehning. "Please do not drive distracted. Please put the phone down. Distracted driving is one of the major contributing factors to school bus passes."

For New York State Trooper James O'Callaghan, motorists illegally passing a stopped school bus is something he personally takes very seriously.

"New York State Police stats in the last two years, we see a 25% increase in school buses being passed. This shouldn't be," said O'Callaghan on Wednesday. "I take this near-and-dear to my heart, as a few years ago, my daughter was almost struck by a vehicle passing her school bus coming home from school. So I stand here as a trooper, but also then as a father, almost being a statistic to everything we're talking about."

As for school bus drivers, Ashley Hensley from the Iroquois Central School District can only do so much to ensure her students get on the bus and back home safely. She's thankful for the efforts from local law enforcement and others bringing light to the importance of school bus safety.

"We've all been in situations where people have gone through our reds, passed us on the right, or just put us in dangerous situations that are out of our control. And as frustrating as it is to us as drivers, we see the fear and frustration on the parents' faces every single time it happens. And knowing there's nothing we can do about it makes it even worse," Hensley said Wednesday.