School bus drivers report hundreds of drivers a year

The school year is less than 3 months old, and Steve Tomash has compiled a number of stop-arm violations.

“It makes me so mad,” said Tomash, a bus driver for the College Community School District. “Drivers have no respect for kids' safety.”

Nearly 240,000 Iowa students are transported by bus to and from school every day. In October 1998, the Iowa Department of Education asked schools to report the number of stop-arm violations on a particular day. The 156 schools who complied reported a combined total of 541 violations.

“Factor in 180 school days per year, and that's an estimated 97,380 violations per school year,” said Max Christensen, school transportation executive officer for the Iowa Department of Education. “That's a lot of chances for children to get hurt.”

State law requires drivers to stop for a school bus that has its red lights flashing and stop-arm extended. State law also gives bus drivers the right to fill out a violation report if drivers don't stop. The reports are turned into city, county or state law enforcement officers, who investigate and issue citations.

“You have to admire the bus drivers who fill out the forms,” said Lonny Pulkrabek, Johnson County sheriff. “You literally have a split second or two to get the information.”

Bus drivers have a 72-hour window to file a violation report. Law enforcement officers have seven days to investigate. If the information in the report does not match the information the officers uncover, they won't issue a citation.

Six officers work in the Cedar Rapids Police Department's traffic bureau. Investigating stop-arm violations consumes about half their workload, Sgt. Cory McGarvey said.

“I don't think we can write enough tickets to fix this,” McGarvey said. “We have to educate the public.”

The Clear Creek Amana School District reports about 25 stop-arm violations a year. Most happen on the highway, said Keith Pirkl, the district's transportation director.

“People need to wake up a little more in the morning and stay off their cell phone,” he said.

The risk is high.

“Drivers think they can beat the bus when they see the amber warning lights flash,” said Scott Grabe, transportation director for College Community schools.

What they don't realize is that they are playing a potentially dangerous game.

“Every bus driver has had close calls,” said Curt Wheeler, general manager of Durham School Services in Iowa City. The company contracts bus services for the Iowa City school district. “It's the kind of thing that keeps them up at night.”

Wheeler said his drivers turned in 281 stop-arm violations last year. College Community drivers reported about 200. Despite those numbers, some drivers question if it's worth it to fill out violation reports.

Of the 137 reports turned in to Cedar Rapids police so far this school year, 61 resulted in tickets and 19 in warnings.

Christensen said many county attorneys won't pursue the tickets, because they believe a conviction is difficult to get unless the driver can be identified. Iowa law does allow for the owner of a vehicle to be charged, regardless of who was driving at the time of the violation.

“It's a frustrating process,” Christensen said.