Please Stop for Our Students!!

Dear School Community,

We continue to communicate about the district’s partnership with BusPatrol, a new bus camera initiative designed to increase safety throughout our school community. As you now know, BusPatrol outfitted the entire fleet of Garnet Valley buses with automated enforcement technology to detect the license plates of vehicles that fail to stop for school buses, putting children at risk. The data is frankly staggering and a bit scary.

Going live on September 12th, we have now logged 119  violations in 21 school days. Most of the violations are occurring at the following locations:

• SR 1/Baltimore Pike just East of SR 322

• SR 322 Conchester Highway

• SR 261/Valley Brook Road at Smithbridge Road

We believe the high incidence rate at SR 261/Valley Brook Road and Smithbridge Road is due to the fact that drivers don’t understand that when red lights are flashing, ALL activity at the intersection must stop.  Some drivers are continuing to make turns from Valleybrook onto Smithbridge and vice-versa. Regardless of the reasons, any one of these violations could have led to a tragic result. We, consequently, ask our entire school community to be aware of our buses as they pick up and drop off students throughout the area. Although the majority of you take bus safety seriously, I wanted to provide these important reminders to all of our drivers:

• When you meet a stopped school bus with red signal lights flashing and stop arm extended, you MUST STOP.

• Motorists must stop at least 10 feet away from school buses that have their red lights flashing and stop arms extended.

• Motorists must stop when they are behind a bus, meeting the bus, or approaching an intersection where a bus is stopped.

  • When you approach an intersection where a school bus is stopped with red signal lights flashing and stop arm extended, you MUST STOP, whether you are on the same street or the cross street

• Motorists following or traveling alongside a school bus must also stop until the red lights have stopped flashing, the stop arm is withdrawn, and all children have reached safety.

• If physical barriers such as grassy medians, guide rails or concrete median barriers separate oncoming traffic from the bus, motorists in the opposing lanes may proceed without stopping.

• Do not proceed until all the children have reached a place of safety.

• Should a driver pass a bus while the stop arm is down, they could receive a $300 civil citation via the BusPatrol program.

For more information regarding the program, please visit our BusPatrol Safety Program website.

Thank you in advance for keeping our students' safety in mind as you drive throughout the school community!!

Sincerely,

Marc Bertrando, Superintendent