Safety first: no excuse for passing stopped school bus

Photo courtesy of Rowell’s Garage
TO AND FROM SCHOOL — Transporting students in RSU 68 and Foxcroft Academy during the upcoming school year will be bus drivers with Rowell’s Garage (for Dover-Foxcroft, Monson and Sebec) and Weymouth’s, Inc. (for Charleston). Front, from left, are Mike Chargin, Chris Reardon, Mary Bromiley, Linda Landry, Dan Cumming, Donna Loving and Ed Conroy. Back, Lester Narowski, Malcolm Weymouth, Tal Lyford, Jenny Chase, Mike Morrison, Randy Bent, Ron Richardson and Donnie Tate.

Rowell’s equipping fleet with license plate cameras to record violations, protect children

By Stuart Hedstrom
Staff Writer

DOVER-FOXCROFT — In several weeks RSU 68 and Foxcroft Academy students as well as pupils around the region and beyond will be heading back to school. With classes in session after the summer break, the distinct bright yellow buses will be on the road transporting children to and from school and other drivers will need to be aware so everyone can get to their destinations safely.

“We need to share the road safely,” Rowell’s Garage – which contracts with RSU 68 for Dover-Foxcroft, Monson and Sebec – Transportation Director Jenny Chase said. “Drive-bys have been increasing in numbers recently and there has been an increase in disregard.”

Other vehicles are required by law to be stopped for school buses when the red lights are flashing. Driving by a stopped school bus with flashing red lights is illegal, even in parking lots and on school grounds, with students getting off and on and crossing the road.

“If you see the yellow lights be prepared to stop because the red lights will be coming on,” Chase said. She said children are taught to look for the bus driver’s signal before crossing the road but sometimes the youngsters may hurry and run across without looking or end up going back onto the road to pick up a dropped item.

“If you stop around a bus please be vigilant for children,” Chase said.

West Main and East Main Street in Dover-Foxcroft feature a number of cluster stops where students come from and head in many directions getting on and off the bus. “River View is one of the largest ones and it’s also one of the worse places for drive-bys,” Chase said.

“It’s very difficult to get that number,” she said about the license plates of vehicles passing a stopped bus. New model buses are coming with cameras that are able to capture the identifying information of violators, and Chase said this feature will be on the newest addition to the Rowell’s Garage fleet.

She said first-time offenders for driving by a school bus with its red lights on face a $250 fine for a Class E crime which with court costs comes to $311. A second offense within three years features another $311 fine and plus a 30-day license suspension.

Chase said she is often asked why school buses do not have seat belts for students. She said the vehicles are built for safety – and are designed differently than a car – with a steel frame and iron parts and high passenger seats.

“For seat belts, after 29 years of driving a bus, I am emphatically against seat belts,” Chase said. “If they they are in their seats right they are going to be safe.”

Students take part in evacuation drills with their drivers but only in a few potential types of emergencies – such as a fire or flood – will the riders be exiting the vehicle. “There is no way to get all of the kids out of their seat belts in under two minutes,” Chase said about the delay caused by seat belts when time is critical. She added that in an evacuation, drivers are taught to check under each seat to make sure no one is hiding.

Chase said that she has been asked why students do not have seat belts when the driver is buckled in, “the driver doesn’t have padding all around them.”

“Buses are built for compartmentalization, built for safety and we continually go through trainings,” Chase said, adding that the Maine Association for Pupil Transportation (MAPT) has a number of great safety programs.

She said there are approximately 450,000 school buses on the road across the country, transporting 25 million students over 4 billion miles annually. Chase said 80 percent of Maine’s K-12 pupils ride the bus – compared to a national percentage of 50. These 140,000 students ride on 3,000 buses over 30 million miles a year.

“There are very few accidents with this many miles because Maine does put in an effort into training drivers,” she said highlighting MAPT again.

Chase said in 2008-08 – statistics take a few years to be collected and presented – to and from school there were 448 fatalities nationally involving teen drivers with siblings. The fatality number of students with adult drivers totaled 169 and there were 131 fatalities among those walking to school and 46 among those biking to school. Chase said the number of fatalities with school buses totaled 18, with the majority of these stemming from drive-bys.

While safety is always the top priority, Chase said all the Rowell’s Garage drivers aim to be considerate to other vehicles on the road. When they are able to do so, the drivers will pull the bus over to the shoulder to let traffic go by on the main roads. Chase said not all districts have their drivers pull over as “there isn’t a law, it’s totally out of courtesy.”

Students also need to adhere to safety and riding regulations, doing so by signing a contract along with their parents/guardians. “They know the safety regulations and the consequences,” Chase said, adding that even the Foxcroft Academy boarding students and those who drive themselves sign the agreement in order to ride the bus for sports and other extracurricular program transportation.

Parents are asked to be courteous and not call the school with adjustments to their children’s drop-off destination near the end of the afternoon – with the exception of emergencies. “Calls late in the day for bus changes can be confusing for everyone,” Chase said, saying parents may be unaware of how busy the office can be during the last hour before students head home.

“Emergencies are one thing but otherwise not after 2 p.m.,” she said.

Chase said should a change be needed, parents are asked to provide specifics such as a name, address and phone number for where the student is going. “Not just a note to go to Nana’s,” she said. Chase added that those with any questions pertaining to drop-offs or anything else with busing can call her at 564-3434 ext. 212.

She said a bus will be on display for the SeDoMoCha Elementary kindergarten orientation on Thursday, Aug. 25 from 3:30-4:30 p.m., enabling students and parents to go inside the vehicle for a look prior to the first day of school.

Rowell’s Garage is always seeking more bus drivers, including those who can work as substitutes and/or for field trips and extracurricular programs.