OAK HILL, WV (WOAY) – A Fayette County bus driver was concerned when he noticed an abundance of people running his stop sign as he was dropping off kids.
He told his transportation director, who then told the oak hill police department, which took steps to keep our kids safe on the way to and from school.
Here’s the story:
Stop means stop, especially when it is accompanied by a red flashing light. Especially when those signs and lights are attached to a school bus.
It’s Driver’s Ed 101. Yet here we are, reminding people not to pass a school bus when it’s stop sign is flashing and extended.
When we started to get these nice, clear, sunny days, I started to notice that people started driving a little bit faster,” Mike Fox, a Fayette County bus driver, said. “I also noticed there’s a particular part of my route between [C. Adam] Toney’s Tires and McDonald’s in Oak Hill where I had an abundance of people running my red light to my stop sign,
Perhaps it’s just a bout of collective spring fever. But it concerned Fox enough to take action.
“I contacted my transportation director and had him get a hold of Oak Hill PD wondering if they would beef up the patrols on that stretch of my street because there was just an abundant number of people running my red lights,” Fox said.
Oak Hill Police took the matter seriously and has assigned officers to follow the buses on their routes through Oak Hill.
“Yesterday I had an officer follow the bus on the high school run, and they actually had a vehicle run the bus lights,” Oak Hill Deputy Police Chief Prince said. “I did the elementary run and had a vehicle run the bus lights near McDonald’s.”
In the eyes of the law, running a school bus stop sign is significant. For a first-time offense, state law considers it a misdemeanor. Upon conviction for a first-time offense, there is a minimum $500 fine that could be increased up to $1000 or confinement in jail for not more than six months.
“Our number one goal is to keep everybody safe, keep the kids safe. It would be a tragedy to have to go answer a call where a child’s been run over by a car passing a school bus,” Prince said. “Pay attention. When you see a bunch of bus approaching, slow down. And when the lights turn red, stop.”
The new concerted effort is not lost on the kids.
“I had a couple of students notice. They were saying ‘bus driver, the police is following you. Are you in trouble?’ I said ‘no. They’re running a red-light campaign. They’re running a campaign for the people who’re running our red lights,'” Fox said. “Yesterday they saw that. I saw that person that ran my red lights, and officer prince pulled out from behind the bus. The lights come on. The kids were all yelling ‘They got him! They got him!'”
