Despite widespread efforts to increase stop-arm law awareness and enforcement, a new survey conducted by the New York Association for Pupil Transportation (NYAPT) shows that drivers are still passing stopped buses at epidemic levels and the results can be downright tragic.
The survey was completed as part of National School Bus Safety Week, which was themed around stop-arm law awareness and the dangers of illegal passing this year, and the findings suggest that more than 17,824 drivers illegally passed a stopped school bus across the state of New York on a single day.
Bus drivers from a sample of 18 school districts across the state were involved in the survey, and these school bus drivers showed a total of 385 illegal passing incidents on the day of Oct. 21. When this data is adjusted to be representative of drivers across the entire state, it suggests nearly 18,000 incidents occurred on just one day.
The observed illegal passing incidents break down as follows:
• Number of left side illegal passes during the morning runs: 158
• Number of left side illegal passes during the afternoon runs: 213
• Number of right side illegal passes during the morning runs: 4
• Number of right side illegal passes during the afternoon runs: 10
“These results demonstrate the continued dangers of illegal passing in our state. If we expand that number [of illegal passing incidents] out to our 50,000 school buses, we would have seen 17,824 illegal passes on that day … and that is a problem,” NYAPT Executive Director Peter Mannella said. “We continue to call upon the public to stop when they approach a stopped school bus. We also call upon the state Legislature and the governor to agree on enacting legislation to allow the installation of stop-arm camera technology on school buses to enable us to apprehend illegal passers and issue tickets and fines to them. Other states have enacted such legislation, and it’s time for New York to step up, too.”
Before you think the dense population of New York City is responsible for the huge number of incidents implied by the survey, it is important to know the NYAPT accounted for this disparity.
“We had NYAPT members [participate] from all across New York state, including some very small rural districts, small city districts and larger suburban districts, so we want to thank those 1,080 school bus drivers and the participating school districts and school bus contractors for doing their part to help get the message out about illegal passing of school buses,” NYAPT President David Adam said.
“We are deeply concerned that a passing motorist will strike and kill a student or injure a student. We are intent on calling the public’s attention to this highway safety risk and to get parents and educators engaged in reducing illegal passing,” he added.
