Ohio lawmakers pass bill that would increase penalties for passing a stopped school bus, add cameras

Ohio lawmakers passed a bill last week that increases the penalties for illegally passing a stopped school bus.  

Ohio House Bill 3 passed the Ohio Senate and the House concurred with changes made, so it now goes to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine. Ohio state Reps. Cecil Thomas, D-Cincinnati, and Bernie Willis, R-Springfield, introduced the bill. 

“As the parent of three young kids who get on the bus every morning and get off in the afternoon, I really appreciate my colleagues taking the time to work on this and strengthen safety for all kids in Ohio,” said state Senator Casey Weinstein, D-Hudson.

The bill increases the penalties for illegally passing a stopped school bus with a fine that would range from $250 to $1,000. Repeated offenses could lead to a license suspension, a required safety course and a $2,000 fine. The current penalty for illegally passing a stopped school bus in Ohio is between $0-$500.

The bill also authorizes the use of school bus camera requirements as a way to record drivers illegally passing a school bus. 

“The goal of this legislation is really to change behavior and deter those from putting our children at risk through the reckless action of passing a stopped school bus,” said state Sen. Theresa Gavarone, R-Bowling Green. 

“There’s no destination that a driver needs to get to that’s worth more than a child’s life.” 

The Ohio State Highway Patrol issued more than 16,000 citations for passing stopped school buses from 2018 to August 2023, Gavarone said. 

“That’s more than 16,000 times that a child’s life was placed in danger due to the reckless action of a driver,” she said. “No parent should ever have to worry about their child traveling to and from school.” 

The Ohio Department of Public Safety reported in 2021 more than 14,000 citations were issued over a four-year period for illegally passing school buses, Paul Imhoff, government relations director of the Buckeye Association of School Administrators, said during his testimony last year.  

The bill does not require seat belts on buses. 

Seat belts are optional on large school buses weighing more than 10,000 pounds and 63% of Ohio school districts have at least one bus that has a seatbelt, said Lacey Snoke, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. 

Only eight states require seat belts on school buses: New York, New Jersey, Arkansas, California, Florida, Louisiana, Nevada, and Texas, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Several states allow cameras, and Nevada, Arkansas, and New York have both laws in place. 

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine assembled the Ohio School Bus Safety Working Group in 2023 after Aiden Clark, a Northwestern Local Schools elementary student, died in a school bus crash. The Working Group issued 17 recommendations last year, but requiring seat belts on buses was not one of them.

The National Transportation Safety Board recommends states mandate school buses to have over-the-should and lap seat belts for all passengers.

There were 976 fatal school-transportation-related traffic crashes from 2013 to 2022 and 1,082 people were killed in those crashes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. 

Republican state Sens. Nathan Manning and Kristina Roegner were the only lawmakers to vote against the bill. 

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This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.