Latest news with #SanduskyCitySchools
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ohio lawmakers are trying to increase penalties on illegally passing a stopped school bus
School buses. (File photo from Sandusky City Schools website.) A pair of bills in the Ohio General Assembly have been proposed by lawmakers to try to curb the number of people who illegally pass a stopped school bus. Ohio Senate Bill 62, introduced by Sen. Theresa Gavarone, R-Bowling Green, would authorize — but stops shy of mandating — the use of school bus camera equipment. Ohio's law currently neither specifically authorizes nor prohibits the use of cameras on a school bus. 'The goal of this legislation is to deter those from putting our children at risk through the reckless action of passing a stopped school bus,' Gavarone said Wednesday in her testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. 'At the end of the day, making the decision to pass a stopped school bus illegally is selfish and dangerous.' Ohio House Bill 3 goes a step further by making passing a school bus a misdemeanor with a fine that would range from $250 to $1,000. Repeated offenses could lead to a license suspension, a required safety course and a $2,000 fine. The current penalty for illegally passing a stopped school bus in Ohio is between $0-$500. Ohio state Reps. Cecil Thomas, D-Cincinnati, and Bernie Willis, R-Springfield, introduced the bill, which has yet to have a hearing in the House Transportation Committee, but Willis is the chair of that committee. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Both bills would authorize the use of school bus cameras and create the School Bus Safety Fund in the state treasury. S.B. 62 creates a $300 civil penalty for drivers who pass a stopped school bus illegally. Fifty dollars would go to the School Bus Safety Fund in the state treasury. The remaining $250 would go to the school districts to purchase and maintain cameras for the school buses, although the bill does not require buses to have cameras. It's up to the school districts to decide if they want cameras on buses for all their routes. 'The idea is that the ones who will be funding this will be those who decide to take the reckless action of illegally passing a stopped school bus,' Gavarone said. 'No parent should ever have to worry about their child traveling to and from school.' The Ohio State Highway Patrol issued more than 16,000 citations for passing stopped school buses from 2018 to August 2023, Gavarone said in her testimony. 'That is more than 16,000 times a child's life was placed in danger due to the reckless action of a driver,' she said. 'I would emphasize that this is just citations issued, the number of people who have taken the action of passing a school bus illegally is much higher as it is often difficult to identify the driver or get a clean read of the license plate.' Twenty-eight states — including Florida, Pennsylvania and Tennessee — have passed similar legislation, Gavarone said. The Ohio School Bus Safety Working Group issued 17 recommendations about a year ago, but requiring seat belts on buses was not one of them. Neither of these bills require seat belts on school buses. Seat belts are optional on large school buses weighing more than 10,000 pounds. Only eight states require seat belts on school buses: New York, New Jersey, Arkansas, California, Florida, Louisiana, Nevada, and Texas. Follow Capital Journal Reporter Megan Henry on Bluesky. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Yahoo
Ohio lawmakers tackle school bus safety after 50+ crashes in 2025
School buses. (File photo from Sandusky City Schools website.) It's only three weeks into 2025, and already, there have been 51 school bus crashes in Ohio. Lawmakers have just introduced a bill aiming to keep students safe. Another crash happened Friday morning. On the way to school, a Cleveland Metropolitan School District bus crashed, with a 9-year-old girl taken to the hospital for 'very minor' injuries, according to Cleveland police. A 33-year-old woman was also taken to the hospital but is in 'stable condition,' Cleveland EMS said. Police are still investigating who caused it. 'I pictured myself in the shoes of the parents getting a call or a visit from a state trooper telling them that their child is not going to come home from school today,' Rudy Breglia, a Lorain County safety advocate, said. Breglia started the School Bus Safety Alliance, a group dedicated to advocating for more resources to protect kids. 'Current Ohio school bus safety features are inadequate,' he said. State lawmakers agree that some districts need help. House Reps. Cecil Thomas (D-Cincinnati) and Bernie Willis (R-Springfield) introduced H.B. 3 — which would create a $25 million school bus safety fund dedicated to improving and updating equipment. 'When it comes to buses and transporting our children, we want them to be able to apply for a grant to assist with getting that done,' Thomas said. Schools could apply for grants to buy fully illuminated stop arms, external school bus cameras, seatbelts and more. 'With a little help, they can implement their own plans from training to equipping the buses,' the lawmaker added. Thomas worked as a police officer for decades. He said he had to cite drivers on several occasions for illegally passing a school bus. That's why this bill raises the penalties – making passing a school bus a misdemeanor with a fine of up to 1,000 dollars. Repeated offenses could lead to a license suspension, a mandatory safety course and a $2,000 fine. All the money collected from the fines would be used to fund the grant program. 'If increasing the penalties will cause someone to think twice, then by all means, let's do that because the overall agenda here is children's safety,' Thomas said. This bill has been a passion project for Willis, who is adamant about safety reform. 'It's doing some elevating of the standards around our school buses in the same way that we establish school safety zones around our schools with criminal penalties,' Willis told me back in December when the previous version of this bill was being heard. The bill has bipartisan support, but although Breglia likes it, he thinks it doesn't go far enough. He believes seat belts should be mandatory on all buses. 'They're found in every car, have saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and it's a basic safety tool that should be in all our school buses to protect our kids,' Lawmakers and the governor's school bus safety working group debated seat belts, deciding that they should not be mandatory. The bill will be heard in the coming months. Luckily for school safety supporters, Willis is the chair of the Transportation Committee, so it will likely move quickly through the hearing process in the House. Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on X and Facebook. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
