Heftier Fines Considered for Drivers Passing Stopped School Buses
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Prince George, B.C. – It’s news that many parents feel is way overdue.
The provincial government is reviewing fines for drivers who pass stopped school buses.
“Failing to stop puts children at risk, and this is a concern to all British Columbians,” says Todd Stone, B.C.’s Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure. “I have heard from school bus drivers, trustees and parents that the current penalty – a $167 fine and three demerit points – is not enough to deter drivers.”
As a result, he says ministry staff have begun discussions with stakeholders, including the police, and notes “we can expect changes to be in place before the end of the school year.”
Tim Bennett, vice-chair of the Prince George School Board, welcomes the news.
“I think this is great news. We’ve heard, and I know earlier this year the Education Services committee put out a reminder to the communities about the dangers of passing a stopped school bus,” he says.
“Being the second largest geographical district in the province school buses put on tens of thousands of kilometres per day and we need to ensure that our riders are safe.”
According to provincial statistics, between 2009 and 2014, police issued 1,100 tickets for failing to stop for a school bus. Luckily no children were killed while getting off a bus, though 14 were injured.
Comments
To heck with just a fine! Include an automatic 6 month suspension with it!
There is a need to put cameras on the buses, so that if you are caught on the camera, you get fined. As it is, the RCMP are not catching enough of these idiots.
The camera is a great idea, the problem is, they can only issue the fine, they can’t issue the points without identifying the driver, and if it’s an oncoming car, he may not have a plate – since a front plate is no longer required, so the camera won’t help.
Frankly I find it bewildering how callus drivers are that they’d ignore a school bus. In 5 years 14 children hurt? Why, so you could get to Timmies and still make it to work on time.
Well,thank your local drug dealers and addicts because the police spend so much time dealing with that issue they can’t spare the manpower to do a sting – that’s where they have a constable on the bus, and a lead car ahead of the bus.
Way back when, I took a course of human behavior, and when it comes to changing behavior, if you’re going to use punishment, if the probability of getting caught is low, then the consequences of getting caught have to be high, to have any effect. Starting impounding vehicles for 7 days, just like you do for impaired.
Since when was a front license plate not required? Just asking as its news to me.
I stand corrected. Took awhile to find it, but here it is. “Licence Plates: Cars and trucks in B.C. are required to have the two issued licence plates securely attached, one to the front and one to the rear. Owners who replace the original manufactured front bumpers with bush or winch style bumpers need to remember to replace the front licence plate once they complete the change.”
Makes me wonder then why I see so many vehicles without them.
Alberta doesn’t require a front plate. Maybe that’s why you see so many without them. British Columbians coming home for all the jobs that Christy Clark was begging them to come home for a year ago.
“Considered”??? This should be in place already and generating revenue.
It is a good thing that we do not have to recertify our privilege to drive every twenty years.
Or, maybe we should be…..
I completely agree with extra fines for passing school buses.I also think that equal fines should be handed to the school bus drivers, like the one who cut in front of me near the brewery a couple of mornings ago, to race up to the highway.Thankfully there were no children on board as it was 615AM.
What makes school bus drivers, parents, or trustee’ the authority on what is a sufficient fine, or penalty for a driving infraction??
I think we all agree that not stopping for a school bus loading or unloading should carry a heavy penalty, but is this where the problem lies???
Look at the numbers. 1100 tickets issued between 2009 and 2014. So we can say 183 per year. There are 60 school districts in BC so we are looking at approx. 3 tickets per school district per year. School is in session less than 10 months of the year, however if we use 10 months we can say that we write one ticket in each school district every 3 months.
So what we have here is a policing problem. Then we have a Transportation Minister, making changes to the fine’s using anecdotal information, rather than factual information from the police department.
If other increases in fines did not reduce accidents, why would we expect this issue to be any different.
We need to have the police doing more to ensure the safety of school kids in buses. 1100 tickets over a 6 year period doesn’t cut it.
Here’s an idea; instead of chronically underfunding our public education system to the point where our School District 57 is considering charging $100 per year to the families of children who use the school busses, why not give any revenues from those fines directly to the school districts so they can apply it to their transportation budgets? Then maybe, just maybe, school districts like ours won’t have to change families for their children to use school busses?
Seems we have two ways of issuing license plates in BC.
For those vehicles that are licensed under the Commercial Transport Act, and are issued one (1) plate, the plate and decal must be attached to the rear of the vehicle.
For vehicles licensed under the Motor Vehicle Act (which would be most of us) and for which two (2) plates are issued, one must be mounted on the front, and one on the back of the vehicle, and the decal attached to the rear plate.
So, it would appear that there are a number of pick up trucks in BC that are registered under the Commercial Transport Act, and therefore only require on license plate on the rear, which would explain why we see some pick ups with a plate in the front, and some without.
Vehicles in Alberta (and perhaps Manitoba) do not require a front license plate.
I may be wrong . The few tractor trailer units that I have driven lately have the stickered plate on the front of the tractor and the one with out the sticker is on the back. The plate on the back typically is not visible when a trailer is hooked to the truck. Each trailer has it’s own plate.
it is amazing how many vehicles (cars and trucks) in PG don’t have a front plate either.
I have stopped countless times for school buses and what scares me the kids crossing to and from the buds without looking.
I think that for vehicles over 5500kg the license plate and decal have to be on the front of the vehicle.
It probably wouldn’t hurt to have a publicity campaign as to the rules for dealing with school buses. I suspect many people don’t know them or have forgotten them. There will always be people who flout the rules, but some people just don’t know.
if you passed your drives licence test, you know the rules.
People forget things that were on their driver’s test over time.
Buses have stop signs and flashing lights. Many of them have hydraulically lowered bars to prevent cars from passing. Maybe the provincial government should actually make sure all school buses have that equipment installed instead of wasting time on useless traffic fines that are only effective when there is a cop around.
Higher fines for passing a school bus are just as ineffective as higher fines for speeding. We have laws allowing cops to impound cars for speeding and they do nothing to stop people. When I’m on the highway there is nobody that does the 100 km/h speed limit. The average is more like 110 to 115 or higher, so increasing fines for passing a school bus will do exactly zero, unless the provincial government wants to have cop cars following school buses around 24/7.
Maybe we should look at increasing all traffic fines. I agree though, that passing a stopped school bus with lights flashing should maybe carry a six point penalty plus a heavy fine, plus a mandatory defensive driving course. Speeding in a school or playground zone should carry the same penalties.
I don’t agree with billposer that some people don’t know. If you have a drivers license, it is mandatory that you know the rules.
Don’t know the rules? Lose your license until you do.
I also think there should be a much more lengthy written test before getting a license of any class.
A drivers license should be a serious piece of plastic. If you don’t take it seriously, you shouldn’t have it.
Its like handing out gun licenses. We don’t just do that. A vehicle is just as dangerous, even more so at times, because of variable road and weather conditions.
If you mishandle or carelessly handle a gun, it is taken away from you. Maybe the same should apply to these other deadly weapons.
It isn’t true that anyone with a driver’s license knows the rules. Maybe he or she should know the rules, but people forget over time, and the exam is only a sampling – it doesn’t cover everything. I’m not opposed to stricter enforcement, just suggesting that publicity and education are also likely to help.
If you accumulate 10 points over a couple years, you already know you’re doing something wrong behind the wheel, and 10 points should put you in a mandatory defensive driver course. I feel a ddc should be part of a new driver requirement. Unfortunately kids for many years have been observing how their parents drive and fall back in to it very quickly once they’re behind the wheel. Some of those parents are good drivers and teach their kids well. Won’t talk about the rest. I think any responsible parent should be giving their kids the gift of a ddc on the appropriate birthday.
And I agree with Bill. If you don’t read the MVA once every couple years you don’t know the rules. Does everyone know the contents of the Criminal Code? A lot of laws we don’t even know about.
Would love to see a ddc taught to every Gr 12 student in the province but the costs. Would love to see our insurance dollars or gambling dollars go towards it, but think that’s just a pipe dream.
The Police and the school boards already know where the major concerned areas are.
It is left up to the bus driver to write up a report that is to be given to the police by the bus companies that do not have cameras on their buses.
The owner of the offensive vehicle is then given a call to by the police. The driver of the bus must be able to identify the driver of that vehicle along with the plate # or it will never get to court. It could take months if it ever did go to court. How many have heard of a case going to court – I sure haven’t.
By the way the cameras for each bus cost a min. 3-5 thousand dollars extra for each bus. Does anyone really think most school boards are going to pay for this? Does anyone actually think the private contracted bus companies will pay for it. Doubtful. lol
My dash cam cost about $200. You can probably save a bit if you were buying enough to outfit a whole fleet. Takes a reasonable quality video, you can definitely see the plate # with it. Uses a SD card that I can pull out and load onto my computer, if some event was worth saving.
Bus drivers see all sorts of bad driving behavior, more than the rest of us. The fine money would more than pay for the investment in the cameras pretty quickly, I think.
The problem with dash cams in buses is many will not get a good pic of the driver.
The best thing is to have them attached to where the stop sign is in order to get a better pic. Two cameras are normally used to get pics of approaching the bus and passing the bus. Only problem is it only works on one side of the bus.
This week I saw a car pass a bus while unloading students from behind on the passenger side. Scary! The twerp was going to fast to get a proper plate number!
But how do the bus companies get the monies from the fines? Or the school district?
Why increase fines? There is never a cop around to bust these knobs with the fines we already have in place. More cops on our hwy’s is what’s needed. They would be self funding if they busted all the fn idiots out there.
Tell that to our politicians who don’t have a clue. Police ask for more of a budget, like talking to a wall.
School busses shouldn’t be permitted to stop on numbered hwy’s in BC. They should be made to pull off the hwy to load/unload.
Government needs to get serious with ALL BAD DRIVERS. The fines as they sit are a joke. Most people spend more than what most of these fines are on a family outing.
Start out by adding at least one Zero to the end of each of the dollar values per fine ( example:- fines as it sits goes from $167 to $1670) and for the more serious/dangerous infractions license suspension or retractions added to the fines would be more effective… drive without a drivers licence go to jail and have to pay your own room and board that way the citizens of PG won’t have to pay for them.
Hurt someone due to an infraction, ( hit someone while speeding or drunk or impaired (for examples) never see your licence again
I’m sure that the lot of you people advocating this kind of approach have never broken a traffic law, done something dumb behind the wheel, made a mistake, had something unexpected occur or had a cop, having a bad day, hand out a ticket for the most minor of infractions. The preceding is sarcasm just in case you don’t get it.
The self righteousness of a lot of these comments is incredible. May you be one of the first to get a 1670 dollar ticket for being five miles over the limit, because I’m pretty sure that sometime in your driving career you have been over the limit by a lot more than that.
And it is amazing how many Plates you can’t read, covered in 6 Months of Mud, or is this the Way to hide not having Valid Plates ?
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