Senator aims to get warning signs put back on school buses
Posted on Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Staff Writer garyl @ nwanews. com GRAVETTE - There once were signs painted on public-school buses, warning other motorists on the road that the law requires them to stop to let schoolchildren get on or off the bus. And if a Gravette state senator has his way, those signs will be back. He can't think why the signs were ever removed from school buses but, in any case, believes they need to be put back on and will try to make that happen, state Sen. Kim Hendren, RGravette, said recently.
The longtime state senator, who has no opponent in his bid for re-election this year, has promised to try to restore the warning signs as part of a series of measures aimed at improving schoolbus safety.
A law Hendren sponsored last year, Act 718 of 2007, streamlined and made it more efficient to report people who illegally pass stopped school buses in the process of loading or unloading passengers, Hendren said.
Statewide, since the law was passed, there has often been less reporting of violators and less follow-up by law enforcement than he'd hoped, and he will try to improve the legislation in 2009, Hendren said recently.
The state Legislature should do all it can to make schoolchildren who ride public school buses as safe as the students can be, Hendren said.
The danger posed to children when cars illegally pass school buses is a real one, and law and practice need to be changed before any more lives are lost, Hendren said earlier this year.
Hendren is a former educator and a current member of the Senate Education Committee.
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