URBANA — Neighbors are worried about what they’re calling reckless drivers around school buses in a Champaign County community.
As News Center 7′s John Bedell reported at 6 p.m. a viewer reached out to News Center 7 after he said he saw drivers blow by stopped school busses, endangering children.
Along US-68, just south of the city circle in Urbana, Lee Bowshier and Ricky Cordle are concerned about the view from their front porch.
“The way they’re unloaded and loaded on these busses and crossing this road. This road is just dangerous,” Cordle said.
“I’m afraid somebody is going to get killed,” Bowshier said.
News Center 7 watched for 40 minutes as more than a dozen busses went by Cordle’s porch.
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Two of them stopped and dropped the kids off right in front of Cordle’s house.
Drivers went past the bus while their yellow lights were on, which is not against the law.
News Center 7 did not witness any drivers blow through either bus stop signs or red lights, which would be illegal.
“We’ve seen an increase in the number of times that cars go past our busses as their stop with their red lights activated,” Charles Thiel, Urbana City Schools superintendent said.
Thiel said that increase has come over “the last three of four school years.”
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He said so far this school year, the district has forwarded three reports of drivers blowing a stopped bus stop sign to law enforcement.
“Our school resource officer works on those situations and manages those and doing the reporting process,” he said.
Thiel also said the district goes through training and does what it can to make bus stops as safe as they can — including creating door-side drop-offs wherever possible.
Aside from what the district and city do about the problem Bowshier and Cordle both said they want drivers to pay attention.
“They just ignore it. They just go by it. Flying around it. It’s not good.” Bowshier said.
“I’m just I’m scared for the kids,” Cordle said. " That’s the worst fear of this whole thing ... somebody hitting one of these kids.”
Urbana Police Department told News Center 7 that since 2020 they have received 13 bus complaints, most of them from passing a stopped bus.
Under Ohio law, a citation for that comes with a mandatory court appearance.