Eyes on the road

It’s hard to miss big school buses, but people do

It’s almost two months now since students across Northwest Arkansas wrapped up their summer breaks and, like the swallows at the Mission of San Juan Capistrano, made their annual return to the hallways of their schools.

What happens in classrooms throughout the region is nothing less than the construction of Arkansas’ future, grade by grade, class by class, student by student. Because of its daily repetition, it’s easy to forget the critical importance of the process to expose young people to knowledge and build their capacities for critical thinking. What happens in public schools is our communities’ investment in tomorrow. Whether one calls it “no child left behind” or any other catchphrase, the message is, or ought to be, that every kid matters, that every student has the potential to contribute in a world that needs constructive contributors.

But none of that happens if kids can’t get safely to their schools. Every morning, thousands of young people stand roadside, in cities and in the country, awaiting the big yellow buses that are a critical part of a robust public school system. Every afternoon, these large vehicles deliver back home these students, sometimes exhausted from a day of learning. They’re eager to get home, free of the formal structures of their schooling, where they can just be kids.

They bolt off the buses. They dash across streets. And the idea that anything might interrupt their youthful plans hardly enters their heads.

School buses are, statistically speaking, extremely safe places for students to be. But when students approach the school bus in the morning or depart it in the afternoon, their safety relies in great measure on the behaviors of motorists on the roads. Sadly, every school year comes with scary incidents that threaten students’ well-being.

In August, for example, a Bentonville student miraculously avoided serious injury when she was hit by a truck as she was boarding a school bus. The warning lights on the bus were flashing and the swing-away “stop arm” did its job, creating a visual barrier alerting motorists of the need to stop. Still, the truck’s driver did not stop.

A few days ago, a story out of Bella Vista described a mom’s experience — two different times — of watching her daughter’s near-miss with a car as the girl approached her bus stop on Riordan Road. Despite the warning lights, vehicles simply failed to stop when the bus arrived to load students.

Drivers, according to a Bella Vista staff attorney, often repeat the same story: “I didn’t see it.”

It’s hard to imagine how anyone could miss something like a bright yellow bus, somewhere around 40 feet long, with flashing lights. But they’re like anything else: Drivers simply get used to them being part of their surroundings and, eventually, can become less attuned to their presence even with all the warning mechanisms.

Look around Northwest Arkansas and it’s not hard to witness examples of driver impatience. At busy interactions, drivers appear to have adopted a new standard for traffic signals: Green means go, yellow means go fast, and the first few seconds of a red light mean “I can still make it.” Such impatience happens as school buses pick up and drop off their riders, too.

Buses interrupt the flow of traffic as they pick up and discharge their riders, and some drivers simply push the envelope of safety when they should instead treat it respectfully. Too many drivers do not imagine what’s really at stake: a child’s life. All they see is an obstacle to their own need to get where they’re going.

Inattention, too, is a culprit. Whether it’s using a smartphone, putting on makeup or trying to eat and drive at the same time, it all distracts from the attention one should pay to surroundings when operating a moving weapon weighing several thousand pounds. When tempted to engage in such activities, perhaps it’s helpful to imagine the physics of such a vehicle striking a youngster. Awful imagery, right? And the reality is so much worse. So ask yourself: What distracting behavior might you be tempted to engage in that is worth risking someone’s life? None is worth it.

The key is simple, but easily ignored: Daily, remind yourself that school buses are on the road delivering children to these magical places of education. These are the children of friends and neighbors. These are young people whose physical well-being deserves the utmost attention. If, as a driver, you can’t pay full attention to the roads on which you’re driving, pull over and take care of that urgent business while sitting stationary.

Don’t be the reason a child’s future is disrupted.