By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
With school beginning next week around St. Joseph, the Buchanan County Sheriff’s Office is giong to be keeping an eye on school zones and bus routes.
Captain Mike Hess says the Sheriff’s office wants everyone to be sure to refamiliarize themselves with safety measures around school areas
“Meaning watch your speeds in the school zones, those speeds will be enforced,” Hess says on the KFEQmunnity show. “And especially school bus safety, as you start to travel those roadways that you haven’t seen school busses on in a few months, get used to those coming back out, because we always usually have some events with school busses regardless of what time of year, so we want to make sure folks are very careful with that.”
Hess says the Sheriff’s office is always enforcing these safety measures on some level, but for the first two weeks of school there will be an enhanced push to protect children.
Hess says every year the Sheriff’s office hears some of the same complaints from people when it comes to traffic in school zones.
“We’re seeing a tremendous amount of speeders in the area through the school zone, or we’re having a problem with some folks passing a school bus when the red stop sign is out,” Hess explains. “And we want to make sure those are just prevented from the beginning, get everybody in the habit of stopping behind a school bus, you have to stop.”
Hess reminds everyone that not stopping for a bus with its stop sign out is a ticket able offense. During the first two weeks of school officers will be out on random bus routes monitoring for violators.
Hess reminds drivers those school zones can be anything that is marked with that school zone sign where drivers should be aware and slow down
“So it could be a cross walk associated to it, it could be the area immediately in front, to the side, however you want to phrase that, of the school,” Hess says. “But all those speeds are reduced because of the amount of children around.”
Hess points out all these measures are to make sure people are aware of the school zone rules and are refamiliarizing themselves with them as school starts back up.
You can follow Matt on X @KfeqMatt and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.
