Police Beat: : School-bus laws
Posted on Wednesday, June 25, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/gentry/Opinion/2621/
Welcome Readers,
Today, I have an important issue I want to cover. Some of you will be disappointed to find my column is not the ìinternal exorcismî you asked for.
I have some things I would really like to take off on, like gas prices, our presidential candidates and rude customers and consumers, but todayís topic is just too important to let go without comment.
Donít worry though. I will do some ìsoul clearingî in todayís column so everyone knows just how I feel about the issue.
School-bus-passing violations are rampant in this state. I would surmise the violations are common nationwide and that this is not just an Arkansas problem.
In a recent Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, there was an article in Section B about school-bus laws. The article made reference to two or three public servants, namely, State Senator Kim Hendren, head of the Arkansas Prosecuting Attorneyís Association Bob McMahan and State Representative Frank Glidewell, to name a few.
Legislators want something done and there is no shortage of accusations as to who should be blamed. Some accuse police, some prosecutors, some the judges and some blame the law itself.
There is obviously a feeling that the law needs to be strengthened. I agree.
I am familiar with the law governing school-bus-passing violations. Act 718 of 2007 now requires school-bus drivers to report incidents and other information required by the statute. Failure to do so could result in being prosecuted for an offense classified under Arkansas Code as a class C misdemeanor.
The current law which governs offenders who pass stopped school buses already carries severe penalties. Furthermore, the law has recently been strengthened, and penalties increased for drivers who actually strike a child and cause fatal injuries.
I applaud Senator Hendren for taking on this very important issue. He is certainly working hard for his constituents. I do, however, disagree with our Senator and some others quoted in the aforementioned article.
The law does not need strengthening. It is plenty tough on offenders. Those convicted of passing a stopped school bus face fines ranging from $ 250 to $ 1, 000, up to 90 days in jail, an average of 21 days suspension of their driving privileges and up to 400 hours of community service.
Where strengthening needs to be done is in dealing with the agencies across the state who fail to properly investigate, prosecute and sentence offenses, if they do at all.
Arkansas law enforcement, as a whole, has done a poor job of investigating school-bus-passing offenses. I have heard of officers who think it should be someone elseís job to investigate these reported incidents, of supervisory officers who think they have more important things to do and of departments as a whole which say they are so shorthanded and under-funded they canít possibly handle it.
This simply isnít true, and hereís why. Who will investigate these offenses if not a police officer, having legal jurisdiction in the area where the offense occurred and commissioned by his / her department to investigate ìallî offenses reported to him. This is a ìcopoutî by lazy officers in lazy departments.
Prosecutors should also be held accountable to vigorously prosecute these offenders, without some handing out ìgravyî plea bargains which are no more than a slap on the wrist ó I can certainly see why many bus drivers were hesitant to report violators prior to the law change.
Another problem is the judges who sentence offenders with almost no penalty at all. Judges have wide discretion in how they sentence offenders, sometimes too much discretion.
Since I have been chief of police in Gentry, school bus passing violations have been vigorously investigated by our department and prosecuted by prosecuting attorney Jay Williams. Our judge, the honorable Jeff Connor, realizes the seriousness of these offenses and has punished offenders.
Sometimes the reported vehicle license information does not match the offending vehicle. This does make investigation tougher. But, in the majority of cases, the tag returns to the vehicle reported and it isnít that hard to find the offenders. The costs of investigating most of these cases are extremely minimal and require very little time. I am proud of this department and its officersí efforts in bringing these offenders to court.
I agree vehemently that something needs done in regard to the school-bus violations and I certainly support your efforts, but, Senator Hendren, if we are not going to hold accountable the agencies charged with investigating the offenses, the prosecutors who are charged with convicting the violators and the judges who are known for giving noon detention instead of a spanking, no amount of law tweaking is going to help.
What do you think ? Until next time, have a great day.