CHP Giving Drivers a School Bus Lesson: Stop or Be Stopped

California Highway Patrol Officer David Webb strode up to the late-model Mercury Topaz, which he had just pulled over to the shoulder of Creek Road.

“Hi,” he said to the driver as he peered through the passenger window. “You passed the school bus when the lights were flashing.”

“I didn’t realize,” the 19-year-old Ojai woman said meekly.

Jennifer Colvard’s lack of awareness cost her $405 Thursday. She received a ticket because she flagrantly violated a new law, Webb said: She not only passed a Ventura Unified School District bus that was unloading children, she drove by his patrol car waiting behind the bus.

Colvard, holding back tears, admitted knowing about the new law, and told Webb that she just wasn’t paying attention.

“I guarantee you she won’t pass a bus again for a while,” the CHP officer said as he drove back to the Ventura station in his patrol car.

Colvard was caught up in a sting operation conducted by a CHP “strike team” that has been

patrolling the county for motorists who violate a law that took effect Jan. 1.

Named for a 7-year-old Orange County boy who was killed in a 1994 truck crash, the Thomas Edward Lanni School Bus Safety Act requires bus drivers to flip on their red warning lights every time they stop to pick up or drop off schoolchildren. Before Dec. 31, the flashing lights only were activated when children crossed the street in front of the bus.

Unless there is a road divider or a double-double yellow line, all motorists, regardless of what direction they are headed, must stop while the flashing lights are on.

But most drivers are either ignorant of the law, not paying attention to it or violating it outright, according to the CHP, school officials, parents and children.

“They don’t even slow down, they don’t even hesitate whatsoever,” said Yvonne DeBuhr, a bus driver for 16 years with Ventura Unified. “The children, they’re thinking they’re invincible because they [motorists] are supposed to stop. They think adults will follow the law.”

Two of five cars in the CHP strike team pulled up near Oak View Elementary School as it let out at 2:15 p.m. Thursday. Three motorists approached the school as students from the first through third grades hopped on DeBuhr’s bus--and all three motorists went right by, although her lights were flashing.

CHP Officer Brian DeMattia gave warnings to the drivers, sparing them the costly citations because they all had proceeded slowly around the bus. DeMattia said CHP officers likely will continue to hand out more warnings than tickets until people become more aware of the new law.

“The public is just not focusing on the bus. They’re not geared into it yet,” said CHP Capt. Dave Kissinger.

But Tammy Garcia of Oak View complained that motorists are blatantly ignoring the law and she is worried about her children, Lindsey, 10, and Stevie, 8, being dropped off on Creek Road.

“Everyone’s in a hurry, this road is like a freeway,” Garcia said.