THUNDER BAY — Vehicles illegally passing school buses is happening at an average of seven times a day in this city.
That, said Craig Murphy, is seven times too many.
Murphy is the consortium manager for Student Transportation Services and addressed traffic safety on Thursday outside of St. Vincent School.
“I’m here today to remind motorists about the importance of stopping for school buses when they’re stopped with the red lights flashing and the stop arm out,” he said.
“It is the law in Ontario. It has been the law in Ontario for many decades. It is part of your driver training.”
He said that as of two years ago, there is a new yellow and red light system.
“When you see a bus with the yellow lights flashing, that means the bus is about to stop. You are now given advance notice that, hey, this bus is about to stop to either pick up or offboard children.”
He said it “is absolutely illegal and extremely dangerous” to pass a bus when it stops to let students on and off.
Const. Michael Himanen said the Thunder Bay Police Service’s traffic unit receives complaints either through Crime Stoppers or public complaints coming to the station’s front desk from the school board.
“Because a lot of bus drivers are reporting incidents or school crossing guards are reporting an increase of incidents of drivers just not obeying the fact that they’re there . . . the thing that we want to affirm, especially in school zones, is to stop for school buses,” Himanen said.
“We want to make sure that children are safe getting back to their families after school.”
The second thing, he said, is to remind drivers they need to stop for crossing guards.
“We want to confirm and make sure with the public that they know that the crossing guard has to be fully back onto the curb area before motorists are allowed to proceed on the roadway.”
The third reminder for the public, he said, is to not speed through school zones.
“Most school zones in the city are 40 kilometres an hour zones, and we want to make sure that the motorists are slowing down to 40 kilometres an hour before they enter the zone.”
Officers are conducting enforcement in school zones to ensure that people are following that speed limit, he said.
“Not stopping at a stop sign, it doesn’t really save a lot of time,” he said. “So we just like to remind motorists to just slow down, follow the speed limit, you’ll get to where you’re going.”
He said that when you follow the speed limit, it builds that habit and the best thing you can do is to leave yourself a bit more time rather than speeding.
Michelle Riemer, school crossing guard supervisor for the City of Thunder Bay, said she is pleased with the traffic safety blitz.
“We’ve been noticing them, and noticing them pulling people over for speeding,” she said.
She said that crossing guards have been seeing an influx of close calls and incidents, as well as rude and disrespectful drivers.
“We understand everyone’s in a rush to get somewhere, but we are just trying to get everyone to school safely, and so we just really would appreciate if everyone would just slow down, pay attention, and wait for everyone to get off the road.”
