More student pedestrians die outside the bus than on the bus. Students getting off the bus and crossing the road against traffic with the bus red lights flashing and stop sign extended are not necessarily safe. Crossing streets and roadways leads to unnecessary pedestrian deaths and injuries. Many bus drivers report one or two cars running the bus stop lights/stop sign per day. Police enforcement is not sufficient to stop these repeat offenders. State laws or local ordinances often limit the acceptance of our school bus drivers recording the vehicle type, color, license plate information that would lead to citations for stop light runners. None of the school bus construction multiple safety features apply when those students are outside the bus and on the roadways of America. On the roadway our students are more vulnerable to collisions and to injury than any pedestrian. School Bus Accident Reconstruction expert Dr. Ray Turner is prepared to assist as an accident reconstructionist and/or as an expert witness for these school bus or school-bus related fatalities or severe injuries.

TOPIC TWO Best Fix: Eliminate all bus stops requiring students to cross streets, roadways, highways, primary or secondary roads. Have the bus pull around instead and let them out on the passenger side where there is no need to cross the street. (Critics will say that to route buses in this way would be impossible. Not so. It is not that expensive. I required 165 special needs buses to NEVER let out a student to cross the roadway. In so doing our very large school district had no close-calls, accidents or fatalities for 12 years. Why can't regular routes do the same? At least regular routes can change top 20% of the most dangerous routes where bus stop runners regularly put our students' lives in jeopardy.

Topic Two Quick Fix #1: Challenge state legislators to facilitate school driver observation, notes, reports, photographs and witness statements as legal ground for citing school bus red light runners.

Topic Two Quick Fix #2: Require school bus drivers to record with an inexpensive one-time camera photos of red light runners.

Topic Two Quick Fix #3: Maintain a database of school bus red light runner personal and vehicle information as well as the bus stop locations where these bus stop sign runners risk our students' lives.