Safety Services Nova Scotia is promoting school bus safety this month, leading up to School Bus Safety Awareness Week at the end of October. Winners of the video contest, which begins Sept. 15, will be announced during the safety week.
This year’s safety awareness campaign focuses on the safety of students crossing the street to and from their school bus.
On a daily basis, more than 80,000 children travel by school bus in Nova Scotia. The potential for children getting injured is greatest when children are outside of the school bus. The behavior of drivers in approaching vehicles, as children are walking to and from the school bus, is a variable that cannot always be controlled.
Vehicles illegally pass school buses that are stopped to pick up or drop off students. Those students are then exposed to traffic as they cross the street. It’s illegal to pass a school bus, which is stopped with its alternating red lights flashing.
The majority of failures to stop for the school bus happen when the offending vehicle is driving toward the bus in the opposite lane.
For more information on the contest, visit www.schoolbussafety.ca or contact Arminta Kennedy at 902-454-9621, ext. 222, or [email protected].
