School bus law has little effect; redo in works
Posted on Sunday, June 22, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/229336/
In 2007, the Legislature enacted a law requiring school districts to notify prosecutors when a motorist passed a school bus that was loading or unloading children.
The law hasn’t made much difference. There’s been no verifiable reduction in the number of bus passings or surge in prosecutions of bus passers.
A state senator who sponsored the legislation blames prosecutors. He said they aren’t being tough enough on lawbreakers.
Prosecutors, on the other hand, say the law is flawed because many of the reports school districts provide don’t include enough information to make a case.
And, in fact, they say it counterproductively bypasses law enforcement, forcing prosecutors to bounce the reports back to local police departments to see whether enough information can be gathered to support the filing of a charge.
State Sen. Kim Hendren, RGravette, says he plans to try to get the Legislature to revise his law in January. The safety of schoolchildren is too important to leave them unguarded against reckless drivers zooming into their path, he said.
“It hasn’t been implemented like it needs to be. The prosecutors are just not getting it done. We have to put some teeth into it and require some accountability,” Hendren said.
Act 718 of 2007 requires school bus drivers to file reports of motorists who pass their buses when students are getting on or off. The reports are supposed to include the license plate numbers of the vehicles that passed the bus and brief descriptions of the vehicles.
The reports are to be turned in to the district superintendents, within two hours after the driver’s shift ends. The superintendents then are to pass the reports along to local prosecuting attorneys.
If caught, a motorist faces a misdemeanor charge carrying potential penalties of a $ 250 to $ 1, 000 fine and up to 90 days in jail, he said.
In addition, the court may order community service of up to 400 hours and suspend a driver’s license for 21 days to one year, Hendren said.
State school transportation officials say no student has been killed since the Jan. 11, 2007, death of Lizzie Cimprich, 14, an eighth-grader at Watson Chapel Junior High. The woman who hit Lizzie as she exited a school bus on U. S. 79 was drunk and received a 16-year sentence.
Last year, two students were injured by passing cars in Pea Ridge and Beebe, said Mike Simmons, senior transportation manager for the state Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation Division.
Prosecution has been spotty, agreed Bob McMahan, state coordinator for the Arkansas Prosecuting Attorneys Association.
“One of biggest problems that prosecutors have pointed out is that the way the law is written right now what’s often missing is the investigative aspect of law. The driver or witness observes something, gives a brief description, but [license plates or physical descriptions of drivers ] don’t match or it’s only a partial match,” McMahan said. “What I’m hearing is that they don’t have the necessary information to go forward.”
Prosecutors want to hold offending motorists accountable, McMahan said. They take it seriously, but they feel that their “hands are tied,” he said.
Another problem: Proving that the owner of the car was driving at the time of the crime.
State law presumes that the owner of the car is driving, but that might not be enough for a successful prosecution.
“We have the burden of proof,” McMahan said. “But certainly that presumption could be rebutted in court.”
Prosecutors want to work with schools and legislators to make the law work, McMahan said.
“Everyone agrees it is important,” he said.
In 2004, the Department of Education conducted a singleday snapshot of the scope of the problem, notching 881 violations.
Not surprisingly, the most violations were in urban, hightraffic districts: Fort Smith (137 ), Rogers (97 ), Little Rock (92 ), North Little Rock (79 ) and Fayetteville (73 ).
Anecdotal evidence suggests that motorists ignoring school buses that have their warning signals on has declined somewhat in Little Rock since the law passed, said Edward Streeter, contract manager for First Student, a private contractor that buses almost all Little Rock School District students.
Newer school buses have digital screens on the backs warning drivers that students are about to get on or off. And drivers have made greater efforts to report abuses, Streeter said.
“The law has helped, and we’ve made [educating drivers about the law ] a part of our annual training,” he said.
A study this year by the Bureau of Legislative Research found that 27 motorists were prosecuted out of 503 reports filed by civilians — including bus drivers — from July 2007 to March 2008. Only eight out of 28 judicial districts statewide responded to the survey.
One of the nonresponders was the 6 th Judicial District, encompassing Pulaski and Perry counties. Larry Jegley, prosecuting attorney for that district, said his office sends letters to offenders warning them that repeat violations will be prosecuted.
Often, the registered owner of the car responds that it was a teenage child behind the wheel.
“It’s worked really well. To my knowledge we haven’t had a repeat offender,” Jegley said. “We try not to snatch people up and prosecute them.... It’s more of an education problem. People don’t understand all the rules.”
If prosecutors think they can prove that an offender was the same driver who had been warned once before, they’ll pursue charges, Jegley said.
Driver-education programs should emphasize not to pass stopped school buses, Jegley said, but a letter with the driver’s name on it tends to grab the driver’s attention.
“I think we’re getting the word out,” he said.
Rep. Frank Glidewell, R-Fort Smith, said prosecutors need to be more responsive to data requests so that legislators have a better idea how well the law is working.
“But we can’t really press prosecuting attorneys. They’re elected, too,” Glidewell said.
One idea might be to create a state number that witnesses can call, perhaps manned by the Arkansas State Police or the Highway and Transportation Department, he said.
“It’s still on our radar,” Glidewell said.