THUNDER BAY — "No parent wants to be terrified to put their kid on a school bus," said Ramsey Broennle after witnessing dangerous behaviour by several motorists just after 4:00 pm Monday. "Please slow down and pay attention before something catastrophic happens."
She was speaking out following what is just the latest of numerous incidents on Dawson Road in which drivers have failed to stop when approaching a school bus with lights flashing and the stop arm deployed.
"I'm shocked...Not one but four vehicles blew through the bus's stop sign. One after another. Lights flashing, stop sign out, and the bus driver blaring on the horn. The vehicles just kept going through," Broennle stated in a social media post.
In an interview Tuesday with TBnewswatch, she explained that she had driven from her home on Dog Lake Road to pick up her son and her nephew in front of her parents' home at the end of the school day.
When the bus arrived, she said, the driver switched on the flashing lights and extended the stop sign, but traffic just kept moving.
"First, one vehicle that was headed into town went right through, then three vehicles from behind the bus proceeded to just go around...The bus driver had her horn on the whole time, and each vehicle just had to go through...We kind of just stared at one another in shock. It's getting more and more terrifying."
Broennle said none of the vehicles was a tractor-trailer, but "this happens often with the transports as well...We're not even a few days into school, and it's already happening again."
She said police were notified about these kinds of incidents on Dawson Road last year, and were contacted again about what happened on Monday.
"For awhile they were sitting at the weigh station. You'd see them periodically sitting there, but it was usually later in the day, so the bus had already gone by."
A spokesperson for Thunder Bay Police said the TBPS traffic unit plans to conduct enhanced enforcement on school bus routes, but Broennle acknowledged the problem is widespread.
Expressing frustration, she said "I've heard countless stories of the same thing happening all around town, including further up Dawson Road...I don't know if people have forgotten the rules of the road, or what it is."
She said she's even more worried about what happens at the start of the school day when the children have to cross the busy highway to board the bus on its way into town.
Broennle believes one solution is to equip buses with external cameras to capture vehicle licence plate numbers, an idea that's already been promoted by Student Transportation Services of Thunder Bay, the consortium set up by local school boards.
School transportation consortium agrees the problem is getting worse
The rate at which drivers are ignoring flashing lights and stop arms "only seems to be getting worse," said Craig Murphy, manager of of STSTB. "We've tried to put out messaging, we've done many campaigns, to try to get the awareness out every year that it's a legal requirement to stop for a school bus. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be having any effect."
Murphy said the consortium received nearly 1,300 reports of drivers breaking that law in the last school year.
With the new school year less than a week old, there have already been about 30 reported incidents, but Murphy said he knows "there are bus drivers that are incredibly frustrated, and just don't report it anymore."
He said Thunder Bay Police have been very responsive to the problem, but the traffic unit only has so many resources, and can't possibly follow every school bus every day.
"It's an impossible task for them, but they do try whenever possible to be extra-vigilant, during the school bussing times, to monitor the situation."
What Murphy wants to see is the installation of cameras on the stop arms of the 159 buses in use around the city.
"The Province of Ontario changed the Highway Traffic Act to allow stop-arm cameras to be used to convict, much the same way as red-light cameras work. Unfortunately, in order for them to be admissible [in court] there's certain criteria that has to be followed, and the province has put it on municipalities to run those programs."
That means the City of Thunder Bay would have to implement the system, manage it, and securely store the camera footage.
"It can be quite expensive...And I understand the city's concerns when it comes to the costs involved," Murphy said. "But when we look at the number of vehicles that are passing our school buses, I'm sure it wouldn't be long before their costs are recouped."
He said the city decided a couple of years ago not to proceed with a camera system because of the expense.
"There's very little we can do about it other than keep banging the drums, saying 'You have to stop for us or someone is going to get hurt.'
Murphy worries that "the only way we're going to get any movement on that is the reaction to a tragedy."
