ESTILL COUNTY, Ky. (FOX 56) — A Kentucky sheriff said children are at risk almost every day by people illegally passing school buses. Now he is trying to put a stop to it.
The Estill County sheriff said the problem of people passing buses as children are being dropped off is as bad as ever.
“We do get called out here to multiple accidents all the time,” said Sheriff Christopher Flynn.
Despite several warning signs on Richmond Road just a few miles past the Estill County line drivers are ignoring them.
“The main thing we are having issues with right now is that on this stretch of Richmond Road here going into Madison County is in the evenings people passing the school bus as they are unloading the children,” Flynn said.
In Kentucky, when a school bus stops to pick up or unload students on a two-lane road. All traffic from both directions must stop.
This is also the case on a two-lane road with a center turn lane and a four-lane highway that has no median.
“Most people don’t know when they are passing it, that they are doing something wrong, because where this is a three-lane road, they think where the lane is in between that it is not violating the law,” Flynn said.
The Estill County sheriff said his office patrols the roadways quite often to help prevent more violations.
“Just today, we actually us and the state police actually pulled two vehicles over, that passed a school bus while they were trying to unload the children,” Flynn said.
LATEST KENTUCKY NEWS:
But it’s the speed limit that makes the lanes even more dangerous.
“Traveled roadways especially in the evenings with people coming home from work and the areas here is a passing lane so you got people that are traveling at a higher speed, it is not a 35 or 45 roadway, you have vehicles going 55 to 65 miles per hour and you have a bus stopping,” Flynn said.
The minimum penalty for passing a stopped school bus in Kentucky is a $100 fine. Jail time is also possible.