TOLEDO (WTOL) - State Sen. Theresa Gavarone (R-Bowling Green) introduced a bill that local school leaders are saying is a step in the right direction to start taking school bus violations seriously.
The School Bus Safety Act would tighten punishment for people who improperly pass a school bus.
In the past few months, accidents involving school buses and young children have been reported in different locations of northwest Ohio.
“I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have to get a call from of our drivers and say something like that’s happened,” Bowling Green City School’s Director of Transportation Toby Snow said.
While Bowling Green City Schools haven’t had accidents this year, they have seen close to 70 cars blow past their buses with red lights on this school year. They already have installed cameras on the buses to catch offenders. Additionally, they have worked with legislators, other districts and more in hopes of protecting their students.
“Every day they carry our most valuable assets to and from school,” Francis Scruci, Bowling Green City Schools Superintendent, said. “There is an assumption that my kid’s going to be safe being on the bus and that’s why we want to bring as much attention to this as we can.”
Gavarone introduced the bill after seeing videos of bus accidents in her district. She felt legislation was needed.
“It’s just it’s absolutely horrifying to think that something like that could happen,” Gavarone said.
Her proposed bill would increases the fine $500 to $1,000 for first time offenders and then in increments of $250 for each additional offense. It would also increases the license suspension level for every offense of improperly passing a school bus and it would enhance the felony level for vehicular homicide and vehicular assault.
“It’s a big game changer because I had one the other day where the car went through (the red lights,)” Snow said. “The driver got all the information, but the license plate number and I was able to do a screen shot of the license plate number and I mean it is just plain as day. There was definitely no doubt that, that was the vehicle that passed through there.”
School leaders said education is one of the things we need more and Gavarone’s bill partially addresses. The School Bus Safety Act would also designate August as “School Bus Safety Awareness Month” to help educate the public.
While there is still a long road ahead for this newly introduced bill, Bowling Green City School leaders said they are supportive of the proposed legislation.
“I just don’t think you can make them harsh enough,” Francis Scruci said about the proposed changes. “Until people are going to figure it out and say okay, I’m going to have to follow the law. That extra 30 seconds is not going to make or break my day.”
The School Bus Safety Act is known as Senate Bill 134 and will be assigned to committee for further consideration.