School Buses

Three school buses crashed into one another Monday afternoon in Upper Marlboro, sending 34 high schoolers to the hospital for treatment of minor injuries. Paramedics triaged 75 students on the scene, according to Prince George's County Fire and Emergency Medical Services spokesman Mark Brady. The buses had just left Frederick Douglass High School and were loaded with teenagers headed home when they rear-ended one another at a low speed, Brady said in a news release. The buses were in line at a traffic light on the 7600 block of Croom Road, near Route 301. "All injuries are considered very minor," the release said, adding that parents of the transported children were notified.

The traffic impact study for Mays Chapel Elementary School that was published on the Baltimore County Public Schools web site Feb. 20 is seriously flawed ("Balto. Co. eschews facts in Mays Chapel Elementary decision," Feb. 19). Cullane Court, which is featured prominently in the study maps, has 11 residences. However, the study's maps failed to include Straffan Drive, a road bordering the school between Cullane Court and Roundwood Road. There are 110 residences on Straffan Drive, and the rear of most of them abut the current deeded open space park, where the county plans to build the school.

Funny Cide's owners swear they were never especially superstitious. At least not until the former high school buddies opted to save on transportation money by renting a school bus to take them from their hotel to Churchill Downs in May 2003. After their long shot gelding won the Kentucky Derby that day, they rented exactly the same sort of iconic yellow buses to transport them to the Preakness (which they won) and the Belmont (they lost). "We were going to ride those school buses as long as they would take us," co-owner Jack Knowlton said this week.

I was happy to see that The Sun finally do an investigation of the city's speed camera program - its "Stick 'em up!" program, as I like to call it ("Fast money," Nov. 18). Your reporters did a great job covering all aspects of the program's impact in the area, including its many shortcomings and how the local government defends it. I never fully understood the justification for speed cameras in school zones in the first place. I can understand using them around highway construction sites during work hours, as the paper has been full of reports of highway workers getting hit by careless drivers who speed.

Automated speed cameras, installed around area schools three years ago with the goal of punishing dangerous drivers and making the streets safer for children, have caught hundreds of school buses speeding near the schools they serve, often with children aboard, a Baltimore Sun analysis has found. Privately owned buses have received at least 800 automated speed citations in Baltimore City, while city-owned buses have accumulated more than 50, records show. And Baltimore County public school buses have triggered speed cameras more than 100 times over the past two years.

IT IS no wonder those yellow school buses are almost universally abhorred and despised by Maryland drivers. We just don't know what to do around them. "Am I the only one who finds the yellow caution lights a bit confusing?" asked Don Oliver of Columbia. "Several times I have found myself in the limbo zone. I'm approaching a school bus from the opposite direction, the yellow caution lights are on. Do I stop, or keep going? Once I kept going and just as I reached the bus the driver changed to red lights, causing me to slam on my brakes to avoid passing a stopped school bus -- only to have the bus drive past me before stopping."

Would you keep a car on the road for more than 12 years? Not likely. But that's what two local jurisdictions are doing with school buses as a result of a new state law and a $55 million reduction in state funding for school bus programs.Enacted last May, the law allows local education departments to operate school buses beyond the 12-year limit set in the early 1970s. The only jurisdictions to exercise the option so far are Baltimore County and, to a lesser degree, Baltimore City.Baltimore County saw its state bus funding drop from $14 million last fiscal year to $10 million this year.

Fifteen Anne Arundel County school bus routes were delayed Monday morning after the discovery that several school buses were damaged by apparent vandalism, police and school officials said. Police were dispatched to the 1400 block of Odenton Road, a lot where school buses are parked, and found that the electrical lines of 14 buses had been cut, said Justin Mulcahy, a police spokesman. "The buses were all inoperable," said Mulcahy. "It looks like the electrical lines were cut, unfortunately."

SCHOOL BUSES are arguably safer than any other form of vehicular transportation. They have all manner of flashing lights and stop signs aboard, and a distinctive yellow coat that virtually shouts out "Caution. Children."Given a choice, most parents would prefer that their children get on the bus rather than walk to and from school. They'd also prefer the bus to ferrying them in a private car.But that preference for school buses may seem strange in some ways. School buses don't have seat belts for the young occupants, even though it's a legal requirement for private motor vehicles in Maryland.

IAIN McINTOSH weighed in on last week's column, in which I recommended that bus drivers who wave cars around them stop this practice because it might add to an attitude of entitlement. "I would contend that precisely the opposite is the case. If school bus drivers were compelled to pull over and allow the rest of us to pass, there would be less incentive to break the law by passing when they stop to load/unload," he said. "I believe it is the law in California (and possibly elsewhere)

WEATHER: Mostly cloudy, high near 72 . Thursday night is expected to be cloudy, with a low around 61. TRAFFIC: Check our traffic updates for this morning's issues. TOP NEWS School buses rack up hundreds of speed camera tickets : Automated speed cameras, installed around area schools with the goal of punishing dangerous drivers, have caught hundreds of school buses speeding near the schools they serve, often with children aboard. Hopkins report calls for tighter gun laws : In a report being released today, Johns Hopkins researchers contend that tighter gun control laws will save lives and reduce violence, particularly if "high-risk" people such as alcoholics and youths under age 21 are barred from buying or having firearms.

Automated speed cameras, installed around area schools three years ago with the goal of punishing dangerous drivers and making the streets safer for children, have caught hundreds of school buses speeding near the schools they serve, often with children aboard, a Baltimore Sun analysis has found. Privately owned buses have received at least 800 automated speed citations in Baltimore City, while city-owned buses have accumulated more than 50, records show. And Baltimore County public school buses have triggered speed cameras more than 100 times over the past two years.

School officials in Baltimore and Baltimore County pledged Thursday to track, for the first time, automated camera citations that are issued to privately owned school buses hired to transport public-school children. The assurances came after The Baltimore Sun reported that since 2009 cameras have caught hundreds of school buses speeding near the schools they serve, often with children aboard. Privately owned buses have received at least 800 speed camera tickets in the city, while city-owned buses have amassed more than 50, The Sun found by analyzing citation records.

Three school buses crashed into one another Monday afternoon in Upper Marlboro, sending 34 high schoolers to the hospital for treatment of minor injuries. Paramedics triaged 75 students on the scene, according to Prince George's County Fire and Emergency Medical Services spokesman Mark Brady. The buses had just left Frederick Douglass High School and were loaded with teenagers headed home when they rear-ended one another at a low speed, Brady said in a news release. The buses were in line at a traffic light on the 7600 block of Croom Road, near Route 301. "All injuries are considered very minor," the release said, adding that parents of the transported children were notified.

In response to letter writer Susan Brown, I would like to offer her an invitation to visit Mays Chapel Park so she can get an idea what is involved ("Mays Chapel school would be an asset to the area," March 11). First, she will not see many school children in the area during the day, nor many school buses since it is an adult community around the park, and most people are retired. Second, she will see a 20-acre park that is busy this week because there are lacrosse games going on for school children from all over the area.

After a county study found that between 20 and 25 drivers were making U-turns daily near Joppa View Elementary School, the Department of Public Works has approved a U-turn prohibition at northbound Honeygo Boulevard at Dove Drive in White Marsh, according to a report released Thursday from 5th District Councilman David Marks. The county studied the number of U-turns at Dove Drive, and found within a 15-minute period after Joppa View began dismissing students for the day beginning at 3:35 p.m. there were scores of U-turns, the release stated.

From the category of sad and predictable comes the pledge from the Howard County PTA Council that its first survey on school safety will be repeated annually.As sure as day follows night, this means the council intends to use this survey whenever possible to push for more buses to transport students.This is because PTA officials believe their questionnaire reveals the depths of parents' fears about their children's safety when they walk to school along county roads and pathways.And let's not forget that the survey was spawned on the heels of a spate of protests last year from parents requesting more transportation -- protests that the board correctly resisted.

Twenty students and a bus driver were injured today when two school buses collided in front of the Benjamin Banneker Middle School in Burtonsville, but Montgomery County officials said the injuries did not appear to be serious.Fire officials said the accident occurred about 8:15 a.m. when two buses were delivering students to the school at 14800 Perry Wood Drive. They said six ambulances responded.

I read with great interest your recent editorial ("Flashing lights ignored," Oct. 6) on Baltimore County drivers ignoring stopped school buses. The primary reason for the high number of violators reported may be that Baltimore County Public School (BCPS) bus drivers have had lots of practice recording violators. This is one of the most important pieces of the problem. BCPS, unlike almost every school district in the country, does not use the flashing red lights as we were always taught in drivers' education class.

If Maryland motorists demonstrate too little respect for school bus safety, then drivers in Baltimore County are practically off the charts. Unfortunately, there's not much sign of that worrisome attitude changing any time soon. That's because the Baltimore County Police Department has decided not to take advantage of a new law allowing jurisdictions to install cameras on school buses in order to ticket vehicles that illegally pass stop buses. According to his spokeswoman, Chief James W. Johnson believes it's a matter best left to precinct-level enforcement.