‘It’s their lives on the line:’ Georgia county urges drivers to stop for school buses

GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — Bus drivers and school police are frustrated that they see up to 14,000 people a year who don’t stop for school buses while kids are crossing. They’re getting the word out before the start of school.

“It’s their lives that’s on the line, and we must slow down and we must take it easy,” parent Jeimy Arias told Channel 2′s Matt Johnson.

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Arias said she doesn’t understand why she still sees people speeding past stopped school buses while kids are unloading.

“I would hate to hear that someone got hurt because someone was speeding and was not being careful,” she said.

Bus manager Cecilia Horton has spent 15 years driving school buses, and she says hundreds of people ignore the stop arm every school year.

She says the first few weeks of the school year are when she’s the most protective of the kids on her bus.

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“I wait, my stop sign, let the cars go before I even let my kids off the bus, because I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if somebody else’s child that I’m responsible for got hit,” Horton said.

We got a look inside Gwinnett County Schools headquarters today, where they are reminding people that school buses will be on the road again next week.

When you see the yellow lights, that’s the time to slow down.

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Gwinnett school police officer Jack Moody showed us some drivers who never stopped for a bus, and another driver who hopped a curb to avoid stopping.

“It doesn’t necessarily make them a bad person, but we do have violators who purposely drive around the bus,” Moody said.

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