VIDEO: The Dangers And Consequences of Passing A Stopped School Bus

MONROE COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Passing a stopped school bus is a common mistake drivers make nationwide.

Here locally, we’ve seen it time and time again.

In 2016, a case in Pontotoc with the results fatal, but people still do it.

There was an incident just Thursday morning in Monroe County.

If you pass a school bus with its stop sign out and flashing lights on, then you have just broken the law.

Law enforcement and bus drivers say they see it happen even more on four-lanes.

When you see these lights flashing and this sign sticking out, then it means one thing, stop.

Monroe County Sheriff Cecil Cantrell says drivers break this law a few times every school year.

He says drivers need to slow down and realize the dangers of not stopping, while a bus is loading or unloading students.

“These school buses are running on the roads every day and people just don’t respect them. We had a situation this morning, where a person passed a school bus while stopped, loading and unloading, and it was a very tense situation.”

Late for work, suddenly came up on it, or didn’t see it, are the common excuses law enforcement hear from drivers, who fail to stop.

“You would have to see it. I mean, it’s a big yellow school bus. You can’t say I didn’t see it, but what it is, they get out here on the four-lanes and these school buses are stopping and starting off of the four-lanes, and first thing you know, you’re up on it, and then you’re going around it. Well, he’s got his stop sign out. That means that little kid could walk out in front of you at anytime.”

And it’s too late when something happens and you’re not paying attention to the warning signs.

Regardless if you’re on a two-lane or four-lane, if you’re driving in the same direction as a bus, you must come to a stop and the sheriff says stopping takes less than five minutes.

“I’ve went out and timed them myself. It’s usually two to three minutes and sometimes that’s a long stop. Usually, the kids are right out next to the road if they’re getting on the bus and in the afternoons, you know, when they let their sign out and they get off the bus, it just takes a little time.”

Monroe County school buses don’t have outside cameras on them to watch for other cars, so they have to rely on awareness and training.

“With funding and education the way it is now, it’s probably a hard challenge to accomplish with the way funding is, so the best thing to do is just to train our bus drivers and our bus drivers train our kids of how to load and unload a bus,” says Monroe County bus coordinator, Josh Baty.

When a motorist passes a stopped school bus, bus drivers are trained to pull over and call the school to let them know it happened.

“A description of the car, a tag number. If they get the tag number, then we let our SRO (school resource officer) know what’s going on. Our SRO runs a tag and we fill out an affidavit to serve them with their ticket, so they will be punished for doing what they’ve done.”

Those punishments can be costly.

Up to $750 dollars and/or one year in jail for the first offense and a maximum of $1,500 dollars, driving suspension, and/or, jail time for a second offense.