| School bus on city route was above capacity |
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Posted: Thursday, September 24, 2009 2:04 pm
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Children at our bus stop were complaining about the bus being too full and having to sit three or four to a seat!
I called the school and address the concern, to be told “There are a few kinks they are working on.”
If things were not better by Friday to let them know. They also stated they did not know it was this bad!!
Thursday a few children did not want to ride the bus even so I decided to get on the bus and help find seats.
There were none and already the bus was packed.
I counted to find 68 students on a 65 student capacity bus. With there still three large stops to pick up (townhouses and apartments) large numbers of kids.
So I immediately called the school to be told they were in meetings and will be working on the kinks and coming up with a plan in the next few days.
Not good enough for me. My child and other children were at great danger so I got more involved in the matter.
By doing some of my own research I found that some laws were broken and brought it to the proper attention.
These laws are in place by State Hwy Patrol DOT:
• Bus can not operate over capacity – they must call for a back-up bus.
• Not one student over
• Two children maximum to a seat
As of this afternoon our bus route is now fixed or so “we hope.”
But the real question is how many other buses are over capacity and endangering our children!
Please, please, please don’t be afraid to get on your child’s bus and COUNT the number of kids, especially those who live toward the end of the route.
We now took 13 kids off our route and switched to a 72 capacity bus to make our route so if you do the math on that we were 25+ kids over on our bus if they would have picked all the kids up.
When I brought it to the bus driver’s attention on the bus he called in finally and picked up 11 more students and then went to the school to drop off and come back and get the rest.
For the safety of your children, get on your bus and COUNT!
Check capacity.
An accident can happen any time. We had several devastating bus accidents last year.
Let’s make our buses safe!
Heidi A. Hagen
and Other Concerned
Parents of Bus 8
Le Sueur |
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