Parent questions bus procedure (05/19/08)

To the editor:

Hello Jay County. Do you remember when it was early morning and you heard this loud noise waking you up, and it was not your alarm clock? It was a school bus letting you know that your kids needed to get on the bus for school. You proubly do not hear that now because they are just too impatient to wait or even stop.

I say this because I live on U.S. 27 South and my lane is at least fifty yards long and the bus will not stop unless the driver Linda sees you walking down to the highway. There is no slowing down, no safety arm out, or flashing lights, it is just pure fifty five miles an hour on down the road.

Do we really want our children standing in thirty degree weather, with freezing drizzle waiting on the bus?

Do you want to get up three hours early with an eighteen and sixteen year old to hold their hand to be sure they get on the bus for school? I was even told that it is a safty issue to pick children up on the highway. Is it not a safety issue to drop them off on the highway?

Who knows what this administration is thinking because if they can not see that both are the same what can they see? Is there any hope for trust or growing up when you do this?

In 1977 I had a driver come to my house and introduce themselves to me so I knew who would be taking me to school. I was told that they would stop and blow their horn if I was not out waiting for the bus.

If the weather was bad the driver would wait for one or two minutes to be sure I was not going to school or was just running behind.

I never got ridiculed, yelled at, told my parents were lazy because I was not standing in the freezing cold getting sick waiting for the bus that might even be late.

Does this set well will all of you? We live in a country that provides a service to our rural living to get our children to a public school, why do our children or even ourselves suffer because of bureaucratic bull?

In short, here is the problem. If my children see the bus coming about a half mile down the road, and they start down our lane, the bus driver is so inconsiderate that she will not stop and just goes on. This makes myself, or my wife late to our jobs because of that drivers inconsiderateness.

I have looked at this in several ways, but the following Indiana State Codes say it clear enough, and yes it is a standard for all bus drivers in the entire state of Indiana, not just select counties. I would hope that all parents of this county will voice their opinions and let the Jay County bus garage know that we are not going to tolerate our children getting the bottom end of the stick just because a driver does not want to take the time to insure our children's safety and indulge their impatience.

As I promised here is the Indiana State Codes that will show you that our local school system is acting on its own merit and not that of the state. Starting with:

IC 9-21-12-12
School bus loading and unloading on highway ... Sec. 12. When a school bus is operated on a highway, the driver shall load and unload a student as close as practical to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway.
As added by P.L.1-2005, SEC.26.



IC 9-21-12-13
School bus; arm signal device
... Sec. 13. (a) Except:
 (1) as provided in subsection (b); or
 (2) when a school bus is stopped at an intersection or another place where traffic is controlled by a traffic control device or a police officer;
whenever a school bus is stopped on a roadway to load or unload a student, the driver shall use an arm signal device, which must be extended while the bus is stopped.
 (b) The governing body of a public school may authorize a school bus driver to load or unload a student at a location off the roadway that the governing body designates as a special school bus loading area. The driver is not required to extend the arm signal device when loading or unloading a student in the designated area.
As added by P.L.1-2005, SEC.27.

I feel that our community as well as others need to see what our children our dealing with as well as the parents.

Jody Eley

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