This particular vehicle code pertains to the safety of school children and should be everyone's concern. The child's life who is saved may just be your own child, your neighbor’s child, your niece, nephew, grandchild; it could be anyone you know.

California Vehicle Code 22454 (a) states the following: The driver of any vehicle, upon meeting or overtaking, from either direction, any school bus equipped with signs as required in this code, that is stopped for the purpose of loading or unloading any schoolchildren and displays a flashing red light signal and stop signal arm, as defined in paragraph (4) of subdivision (b) of Section 25257, if equipped with a stop signal arm, visible from front or rear, shall bring the vehicle to a stop immediately before passing the school bus and shall not proceed past the school bus until the flashing red light signal and stop signal arm, if equipped with a stop signal arm, cease operation.(Layman’s terms, no vehicle will pass a stopped school bus with red light signal and if equipped, with stop arm extended.)

For some reason, hardly any motorist ever stops or remains stopped for the school bus to complete the process of loading or unloading the students. Too often, I have watched motorists just drive right on through, not even seeing my bus, or my students, or for that matter, me standing in the roadway with the "stop" sign held over my head.

In the NASDPTS 2014 1-Day National Survey of School Bus Red-light Runners, 5,164 California School Bus Drivers participated in survey and reported 26,758 illegal passes for the day. (That is almost 27,000 violations of CVC 22454(a), do the math on the revenue for one day.) For 180 day school year, with only 5,164 school bus drivers surveyed last year, this would total approximately 4,816,440 vehicles illegally passing stopped school buses with red lights flashing. It is not a matter of "what IF" but a matter of "WHEN" someone will be injured or killed by an illegally passing motorist, unless we make a change. 

26 States have fines with escalating punishment for passing a stopped school bus. California holds the number 1 sport for the most vehicles that pass stopped school buses. (Not a statistic or a number I am proud of as a school bus driver.) 

Yet, this particular vehicle code, CVC 22454, is one of the hardest ones to get enforced because local Law Enforcement is just too busy and short handed to follow school buses on route and most districts do not have the money to get stop arm cameras, which at the moment do us (the school bus drivers) no good, since there is no penalty for running the red lights on the school bus. (See highlighted section below) Obviously, issuance of a letter is not preventing people from driving through the red lights on a stopped school bus, if we had almost 27,000 illegally passed school buses in one day, last year. The fact we lead the Nation in illegally passed school buses, is another fact which also shows that the issuance of a letter is not deterring people from running through the red lights on the school buses. We have to find another way and usually a financial fine gets people to pay attention.

CVC 22454 (c) (1) If a vehicle was observed overtaking a school bus in violation of subdivision (a), and the driver of the school bus witnessed the violation, the driver may, within 24 hours, report the violation and furnish the vehicle license plate number and description and the time and place of the violation to the local law enforcement agency having jurisdiction of the offense. That law enforcement agency shall issue a letter of warning prepared in accordance with paragraph (2) with respect to the alleged violation to the registered owner of the vehicle. The issuance of a warning letter under this paragraph shall not be entered on the driving record of the person to whom it is issued, but does not preclude the imposition of any other applicable penalty.

It is time we change CVC 22454 and throw away the form letter and let's put a penalty behind the crime. Let's save a life, let's prevent a future accident, CVC 22454 states: "shall bring the vehicle to a stop immediately", so let's make it a fine for doing so! Let's make it a fine and let's put 80% of the fine BACK into the local school fund of the jurisdiction the offense was committed, and the rest of the fine goes to cover the court costs, etc. 

This problem is not isolated to only California, you can see it happen all over the United States but why are we following behind 26 other States? 26 other States who have decided that children's lives are valuable enough to make illegally school bus passing motorists pay fines and even serve time in jail, yet we send a letter in the mail reminding them it is illegal. Instead of leading the way, we are now playing catch-up. Do we really want to be the only state who does not do anything about illegally passing a school buses? How many years are we going to be number 1 for the most vehicles illegally passing a school bus? I don't think there is a prize for holding that title the longest. 

Please support this petition and let’s make a change, let’s make the School Bus routes safer for the kids.