FLORENCE, Ala. (WHNT) — The Florence Police Department is doing what it can to catch drivers speeding past stopped school buses in the area.
For Jared Culwell, he sees cars passing his son’s school bus every morning and afternoon, and he’s watched drivers do this for years.
“A lot of people are going to work or going home, just in a hurry, and they tend to not want to stop for the school bus,” Culwell said.
Culwell says an accident is bound to happen if drivers continue passing stopped school buses.
“A vehicle matched up against a young man is not a good combination, my son has been known to lope and it’s a special needs school bus; they need to be stopping for it, they need to be stopping for any school bus,” Culwell said.
Joshua Meza with Florence Police told News 19 the department is aware and has tried different methods of catching these types of drivers.
“We’ve tried to use unmarked cars, we’ve put police officers on school buses, we’ve used marked cars, and we’ve been able to have some success with those,” Meza said.
Meza said they have caught several people so far this school year.
“We’ve tried using drones, that’s what we are using right now, we are using drones to spot the people that are running the school bus stop signs,” Meza said.
Culwell is asking the community to do him one simple favor.
“Just slow down, think about if it was your own child, just slow down,” Culwell said.
Meza added that this issue is something they do not take lightly.
“If somebody runs a stop school bus with the stop sign out, we can do a traffic stop, and then there is a possibility that they will get a citation for that or a traffic violation,” Meza said.
It is state law that you cannot pass a stopped school or church bus, so if you see a stopped bus and there is no barrier, even if it’s on the other side of the road, stop driving until the bus starts moving.
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