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Petition Tag - school bus
1. Implement and Enforce Child Safety Programs in Georgia School Bus Transportation 
Georgia leads the NATION in child-fatalities related to school bus loading/unloading zones.
(source: National School Bus Loading and Unloading Survey).
1. GA Law requires fewer qualifications, less training and certification of local school system Directors of Transportation than that of a School Bus Driver.
2. GA Local school system Directors of Transportation are not required to implement "Best Practice" safety recommendations and GA Code has no clear enforcement and consequence policy.
3. Local school system Superintendents and Boards of Education do not consistently follow ethical or recommended best practices in dealing with student discipline and school system employee personnel matters - making decisions without analysis, discussion or review of factual data and onboard camera recordings of actual events.
4. The State-level school bus inspection process and requirements of school bus safety equipment (i.e., air brakes, safety lighting and entry/exit points) is of concern. Local School systems do not adhere to a consistent inspection-reporting process, which is readily available to the public for review.
5. Published articles indicate there is evidence of School Bus Drivers who fear retaliation (i.e., loss of job) if they report bus-related issues regarding safety or mechanical problems. If a school bus driver is fearful to report an unsafe condition - this has a DIRECT impact on the safety of children and the school bus driver.
6. Georgia does not have or enforce a state-level review & approval process to ensure School Bus stops (loading/unloading) zones are SAFE for our children - minimizing street crossings and potential for child injuries/deaths.
2. Keep Godre'rgraig School Bus Running
Godre'rgraig School is a village school with a geographically large catchment area. It currently has a school bus because the routes to school were deemed unsafe.
The council have decided that all children within 2 miles as the crow flies are no longer eligible for the school bus, and that the same routes that were deemed unsafe are now safe.
As well as inadequate pavements, steep slopes and steps that make the walking routes unsafe, the walking route to school that all children from the areas affected would have to take, passes through an area known to be at high risk from further landslides.
3. Gabby's Law for School Bus Stop Safety
Every day, twice a day through out the school year our children stand beside busy roads waiting for the school bus without any safety measures to warn motorists. In Florida alone 3-7 children are killed annually at their school bus stops.
The school districts rely solely on the school bus being at the stop for bus stop safety, but until the bus arrives our children are vulnerable. Since Gabrielle (Gabby) Mair's death on June 1, 2010, four other children have been killed at their bus stop waiting for the bus and after the bus left.
Warning signs for motorist as to the location of the bus stop with temporary reduced speedlimit on roadways with speedlimits greater than 25 MPH would eliminate or greatly reduce the needless tragic deaths.
4. Put Seat Belts in School Buses
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5OoWQaWeRs - Visit this web address and see what happens when a school bus rolls over on its side with a bus load of children. This is unacceptable.
Our children should be in seat belts on the bus to protect them from getting hurt or killed.
5. Get school bus service back for Austin's Colony
Starting the school year of 2010-2011 Hornsby-Dunlap Elementary has informed parents that there will no longer be bus services for Austin's Colony children.
This has caused traffic congestion starting at 6am to 9am for both the Austin's Colony roads as well as 969. Congestion continues to be a nuisance from 2pm to 4pm. It takes over an hour for parents to pick up their children and hot weather conditions are not appropriate for the very young to be walking up to 2 miles and most parents have infants they have to walk with as well.
This is causing many, both those who have children attending and those that don't, to run extremely late for work also.
6. Stop the Cutting of Our School Bus Services in East Dunbartonshire
At the moment, pupils are eligible for school transport if they live two miles or over from their secondary school or one mile and over from their primary school. This has been changed, with effect from the 2010/11 school year, to three miles or over for secondary pupils and two miles or over for primary pupils across East Dunbartonshire.
As a result of these changes, more and more parents will transport their youngsters by car to the school gate. This will make our roads even busier - and they are already jam-packed at peak times - and exacerbate safety issues around many of our local schools. The roads are simply too busy and walking routes are simply unsafe to allow school children to walk.
We believe these are "soft target" cuts which make our school children less safe in the immediate vicinity of their school and make the routes to school more busy and less safe than they already are.
Current traffic law 1174 does not address the consequences of ignoring the reds of a school bus and causing injury or death to a child.
8. Pinellas County School Bus Routes: Keep our Children Safe
Pinellas County School Board and Transportation require children to walk up to 2 miles to their bus stop on dangerous roads by known predators. There are over 300 missing children in the State of Florida.
Children ages 9 through 16 walking alone are the prey of choice for sexual predators. Even with Safety Training children are abducted. Most employers will not let parents off of work to retrieve their children from these bus stops. Let's keep our children safe!
9. Proposed walking route to school is unsafe
*** AN OUTBREAK OF COMMON SENSE ***
Parents of the children concerned have today (12/3/09) received a letter from the Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People at West Berkshire Council:
"Elected Members have reviewed this decision... we have listened to local concerns about seasonal conditions and other factors"
"In the light of this evidence I have decided to overrule the recent decision to withdraw the transport"
I am sure the support for our campaign offered through this petition made a significant contribution to the decision to reverse their decision.
Many thanks to everyone who took the time to sign the petition.
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West Berkshire Council have decided to withdraw the existing free bus service that takes children aged 11-16 from East Ilsley to The Downs School at Compton on the grounds that they have identified an alternative ‘Safe Walking Route’. This is to take effect from 1st April 2009.
The parents of the children concerned do not believe this to be a safe route for children to walk, even if accompanied by an adult.
The proposed 'safe walking route' requires the children to walk 3 miles each way to and from school every day. The route includes several sections of road where there are no pavements and long sections of 'cross-country', unsurfaced, uneven and unlit byways, open to all traffic, which are remote from civilisation. Throughout the winter, the children will need to walk much of the route in the dark.
10. Extension to the number 28 School bus route
July 23, 2006
This petition is now closed.
September 22, 2005
The number 28 Route runs hourly between Morrisons, Evesham to Stratford-Upon-Avon Bridge Street. However on the school bus for this route which leaves Stratford at 4:00 terminates at Evesham Bus Station. The bus station is nothing more than 6 bus stops.
It would make great sense to continue on for the rest of the route, where the 28 would start as the normal 28 bus from Morrisons, Evehsam but instead it starts at Evesham Bus Station and is not a place where the buses are stored or kept.
I have seen at least 20 people who catch the bus from Morrisons, Evesham, and that was just in one day all getting on at the same time.
11. Just Say No to Child Endangerment
We, the undersigned, are asking for help to get our bus driver, Mr. Spells, terminated so we can feel safer about riding the bus.
Not only does Mr. Spells make rude comments, but he also drives carelessly. He endangers the lives of every student on the bus, himself, and the lives of innocent drivers that share the road with him. Mr. Spells swerves all over the road, does not watch where he is going, and has even hit two street signs that are at least three feet off the side of the road.
Is it safe to talk on a cell phone while driving a school bus full of thirty or more kids? I don't think so. But obviously Mr. Spells does because he loves to carry on conversations while the bus is in motion. There is a sticker in the front of the bus that says "no idling - save fuel and breathe easier" but Mr. Spells frequently stops the bus, gets out and goes outside to talk on his phone. He is not only wasting diesel but is giving students the oppurtunity to misbehave. Mr. Spells even has the audacity to make racial comments agaist Hispanics, calling them "brown skins". It is also a state law for anyone to wear a seat belt while operating a motor vehicle. Mr. Spells drives the bus without his seatbelt often.
When we, the students, confront the assistant principal [Mr. Stacy Poston] about these incidents, the only thing he had to say was: "Mr. Spells has been driving for many years, he is one of our best drivers. Would you like us to put you on a bus that has had ten or twenty wrecks?" First of all, why should any bus driver be driving if they have had that many wrecks? It's unsafe. Second, Mr. Spells should keep his glasses on at all times, but instead he will take two minutes every day to take them off and clean them while he is driving. How is he supposed to see? We just hope he knows what he is doing.
This is why we are asking for your help to accomplish the only goal we have: To make our rides to and from school safer with a new bus driver. We are not trying to cause chaos, we are just concerned about the safety of the students and other drivers. This is why we believe Mr. Spells should not drive anymore, for fear of our lives and those of others. Thank you for taking the time to read this petition and we hope you agree with our views.
12. Fairness in Natick School Bus Fees
In 2002, Natick instituted a $250 per student school bus fee for elementary and middle school children living less than 2 miles from school. Those living beyong 2 miles of their school pay nothing for bus fees. As a result, nearly 60% of Natick families will pay no bus fees when their children begin middle school, and 25% will never pay bus fees. At the same time the 40% of Natick families living within 2 miles of both their elementary and middle schools are forced to buy bus fees for this entire time. At this same time, in 2003 the Natick School Department had a budgetary surplus, which it is directing toward eliminating this unfair burden on Natick families.
13. Remove Hendry County School Bus Driver
We, the taxpayers of Hendry County, hereby, request that Ms. Denise Brookins be removed as a School Bus Driver with the Hendry County School System. Ms. Brookins in the past 2 months has left a 9 year old child on the bus from 6:30am till 1:30pm. Ms. Brookins has allowed a student to get off at the wrong bus stop to beat up a child. She claims that the child snuck by her. She then asked the kids still on bus what was going on and they told her and she made no attempt to correct her mistake by returning to the bus stop and picking up the child. The students have said during last year that Ms. Brookins, when the students get unrurly on the bus, she just slams on the brakes and almost got hit 3 times last year by a Semi-Rig.
We the taxpayers believe that Ms. Brookins is going through burnout and needs to be removed before she seriously causes one of our children to be tragically injured.