Drivers urged to be patient with buses
With a new school year starting Wednesday, drivers are being asked to be patient with buses making stops.
Schools open this week with hundreds of buses carrying thousands of children over tens of thousands of miles — and that is only the first day.
Onteora transportation Director Nicole Sommer estimates that, for the 45 routes that buses travel over the course of the 201819 academic year, there will be a million miles driven. It is a district with a significant amount of back roads while also having a very long stretch of state highway to contend with.
“Drivers are not happy that buses are on the road,” she said. “People are anxious to get to work. They don’t want to get stuck behind a school bus stopping. An issue becomes that they want to get out in front of a school bus and a school bus is 30,000 pounds and it takes the length of a football field to stop from 55 miles per hour.”
Sommer agrees with officials in other districts, as well as law enforcement officers, that the most nervewracking time comes as during the first week when bus drivers and students are becoming familiar with those new routes at the same time people in other vehicles are becoming reacquainted with the stop-and-go pace of traffic.
“You come around a turn and you get blinded by the sun angle, you can’t see a bus, you can’t see their lights,” she said.
Sommer added that the long stretch of state Route 28 is problematic because drivers believe they can pass stopped buses.
“It has a shoulder the size of a passing lane,” she said. “Many people will go around a bus, with its red lights flashing, on the right hand side. We’ve had that happen numerous times, almost running down a student getting off the bus.”
Kingston Transportation Director Judy Falcon said her drivers have to contend with the concerns posed by urban routes and rural bus routes. In developed areas, there are children who may come from between vehicles, while back roads have short sight distances with trees or shrubs that can block views.
“They both have their own challenges,” she said. “The one thing that we want to remind drivers of is to stop for the flashing lights. If they see yellow flashing, prepare to stop, and, red flashing, then stop.”
Among problems is the later sunrise that occurs just as classes are starting. The timing is even more difficult during the first week as students and bus drivers are determining how to adjust pick-up and drop-off schedules.
“We ask the kids to be at their stops 10 minutes before their scheduled pick up time,” Falcon said. “It could be dark for some bus stops, so we ask for motorists to really be watching for students who are waiting for the buses.”
Falcon said the problem of drivers passing stopped school buses is a daily occurrence.
“If we see an area that’s hot for that where a lot of cars are passing the bus, we call the local police and they’ll watch the area,” she said. “We’ve caught quite a few like that.”
School district officials also ask drivers to be alert for children walking to schools in areas where there are no sidewalks, and, in some cases, no shoulders.
Town of Ulster Police Chief Kyle Berardi said there is the need for a heightened sense of awareness with the opening of schools.
“People over the last two months have become lax,” he said. “There have been no school buses and less children walking on the side of the road.”
Berardi encourages motorists to allot additional time for their daily commutes and not become impatient with bus drivers or the students going to and from schools.
“Drivers, in general, you’ve got to be aware that they might spend a couple extra minutes at a bus stop in the beginning of the school year,” he said. “Either parents or children are getting acclimating with trying to get on the bus or possibly the children are nervous about being on the bus, so the drivers are trying to calm them down. With due time, the stops should take less and less time. There’s no need to force the issue because it’s not going to increase your arrival time too much earlier if they rush.”