SD73 Bus yard (image credit - CFJC Today)

By Michael Reeve

SCHOOL BUS SAFETY WEEK

‘It’s all of our responsibility’; SD73 looking for improved community committment to bus safety

Oct 22, 2024 | 7:00 PM

KAMLOOPS — Every day, 4,700 students are transported to and from schools across the Kamloops-Thompson School District. That encompasses 84 individual buses traveling more than 9,000 kilometres each day. Those figures also don’t include close to 3,700 field trip kilometres annually.

October 21-to-25 is school bus safety week across the district with an emphasis this year being put on obeying the stop signs.

Safety is paramount for bus drivers in SD73, but they need the help of the public. Passing a school bus with a stop sign deployed will cost you $369 and three points on your license, while also putting students and other motorists at risk.

“For the red light runners, we have equipped stop arm cameras, so anybody that does run a light, we will get their information, we will be reporting them and they will be ticketed,” said Sherry Kristjanson. “All of our buses, some of them are being retrofitted and all of the new buses are being ordered with that stop arm camera on them.”

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The cameras do work as a deterrent, but Frank Luca who has been driving a school bus in Kamloops for more than 20 years, says drivers passing by is still far too common.

“It’s hard to say but a few times in a school year it will happen. I’ve even had people pass me on the right hand side when the students are getting off the bus,” said Luca. “It’s scary.”

Many are worried about accidents while in motion, but for the drivers, it’s the minutes stopped that are the most nerve-wracking.

“The most important thing as a driver, the most stressful part is the loading and unloading of the students. It’s stressful because you don’t know what the driving public is going to be doing when these kids are getting off the bus,” said Luca. “And (the kids) are always distracted with their friends and we try to instill in them, safety first.”

Each year, all students taking the bus are given a safety orientation, but it’s important that message reaches the general public.

“The number one message I have for everybody is that it’s all of our responsibility. The safety of the kids is the responsibility of everybody in the community and we all need to be doing what we can to keep these kids safe,” said Kristjanson.