Panel Assails Plans to Alter School Bus Law

A state Senate committee Tuesday criticized efforts to roll back key provisions of a 6-month-old law intended to keep children safe as they board or get off school buses. The law, which requires that school bus drivers turn on blinking red lights--indicating that motorists should halt--at every stop, has been ignored by many California drivers and attacked by foes who contend that it actually puts children in more danger. But several legislators on the Senate Transportation Committee seemed inclined to give the law more time. The committee delayed a vote Tuesday on a bill by Assemblywoman Virginia Strom-Martin (D-Duncans Mills) to make key changes in the law. Sen. Quentin Kopp, the San Francisco independent who heads the committee, asked Strom-Martin to return in a few weeks with a narrower version of her bill. The Assembly overwhelmingly approved the bill last month to provide wide-ranging exemptions to the law.