Wilson Axes Bill to Ease School Bus Traffic Law

Gov. Pete Wilson has rejected efforts to roll back a 9-month-old law that is meant to keep children safe at school bus stops but has drawn howls of protest from inconvenienced motorists up and down the state.

Wilson’s office said Monday that the governor vetoed a bill that would have softened parts of the law, which requires that school buses use flashing red lights and bring traffic to a halt at every stop as a safety precaution.

“The law has been in place for less than one year, which is hardly enough time to determine if exemptions are needed,” Wilson said in his written veto message, which also noted that comparable laws are already in place in all 49 other states.

The veto drew applause from the father of a Laguna Niguel boy whose death helped spark the school bus safety law.

“I’m very pleased,” said Tom Lanni, whose son, Tommy, was struck and killed by a passing pickup after he got off a school bus in 1994. “It would have eliminated more than half the stops with no rationale. That’s like saying we’re going to give kids a loaded gun to play with, but try to make it safer by leaving out half the bullets.”

The author of the bill Wilson vetoed said her measure was intended to avoid traffic problems and potential accidents that could claim children’s lives.

“I am extremely disappointed,” said Assemblywoman Virginia Strom-Martin (D-Duncans Mills). She said her measure would have “preserved the intended safety measures of the 1997 legislation while allowing common-sense exemptions that made the roads safer for both children and motorists.”

Strom-Martin noted that she and other state lawmakers were inundated by complaints after the Lanni law went into effect earlier this year.

Motorists complained that they were forced to slam on the brakes after coming upon a stopped bus with flashing lights, particularly in rural areas of the state where twisting highways and high speeds are common.

Some drivers reported getting rear-ended. Others were irked because they were hit with hefty traffic tickets for going around stopped school buses.

State officials say no children have been reported killed or injured because of the law, but more than 200 collisions have occurred throughout California near stopped buses. Many motorists continue to ignore the rule and zip around buses at stops, though compliance has increased since police began issuing tickets to violators.

Strom-Martin’s bill initially sought broad exemptions from the Lanni law. Tom Lanni charged that it essentially would have gutted the new rules.

But during the course of the year, Strom-Martin sliced away several of the exemptions at Lanni’s request. In its final form, Strom-Martin’s bill would have eliminated the use of warning lights when a bus pulls off a high-speed rural state highway, when a child needs special assistance to unload or when a bus breaks down or is parked for several minutes to drop off children at school or a field trip.

It also would have lifted a requirement that drivers stop when approaching a school bus on the opposite side of a multilane or divided highway flashing its warning lights and when driving on a road covered with ice or snow.

But the bill still had what Lanni described as a “fundamental” flaw because it would prohibit bus drivers from using their red warning lights--and thus bringing motorists to a stop--as far as 200 feet from a traffic signal light. That change, he claimed, would prohibit the use of the warning lights at more than half of the school bus stops in his suburban community.

Strom-Martin said use of the warning lights near a traffic signal is already prohibited by California law and that her bill simply clarifies when the blinkers shouldn’t be used. Use of the warning lights near traffic signals, Strom-Martin said, causes confusion among motorists, creating the potential for accidents.

But foes said they were troubled that Strom-Martin and other state lawmakers weren’t giving the new law a chance to work and seemed to be putting the interests of the motoring public ahead of the safety of children.