Cops Ready To Crack Down On Drivers Illegally Passing School Buses

PALOS, IL — Palos Heights and Palos Park police want to make sure kids are getting to school and arriving home safely. The first few weeks of a new school year means increased morning and afternoon traffic, as parents ease back into school drop-off routines and school bus drivers figure out new routes.

In Palos Heights Dist. 128, the first day of school for grades K-8 is Aug. 18. Over in Palos Park Dist. 118 students in grades 1-8 return to school Aug. 21, with preschoolers and kindergartners coming back on Aug. 22.

Every year, nearly 500,000 school buses take about 25 million elementary through high school students to and from school, traveling about 5.7 million miles in a single school year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

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During the 2022-23 school year, the latest period for which data is available, there were 104 school bus-related deaths, including six in Illinois, according to the National Safety Council. Of those, one involved pedestrians.

Police in Palos Heights and Palos Park are warning drivers ahead of time that they will be strictly enforcing Illinois’s school bus laws.

In Palos Park, officers will be riding buses along routes where school bus laws are frequently ignored and radioing ahead to patrol cars to report violators. Officers will also be enforcing school bus laws from patrol cars.

Palos Heights police will be following school buses from a safe distance. They will also be assigning officers to school zones.

“Year round we try and do our best to keep an eye on the school zones, both through our patrols and with our crossing guards,” said Deputy Chief Mike Yott, of the Palos Heights Police Department. “But as people have gotten out of the habit of paying attention to buses, bus stops, and kids walking and riding to school, we definitely try to put an extra emphasis on safety and dangerous driving at the beginning of each school year.”

Please remember these key rules of the road regarding school buses:

• Be on the lookout for school zone signals and ALWAYS obey the speed limits.
• When entering a school zone, be sure to slow down and obey all traffic laws.
• ALWAYS stop for school buses that are loading or unloading children.
• Watch out for school crossing guards and obey their signals.
• Be aware of and watch out for children near schools, bus stops, sidewalks, in the streets, and in school parking lots.
• NEVER pass other vehicles while driving in a school zone.
• NEVER text while driving in a school zone.
• Avoid using a cell phone, unless it is completely hands-free, while driving in a school zone.
• On a two-lane road, all lanes of traffic in both directions have to stop when a school bus is stopped with its stop arm out.
• On a one-way street, drivers must stop for a bus with its stop arm out, regardless of the number of lanes on the street.
• On a four-lane road with at least two lanes moving in the opposite direction, only traffic traveling in the same direction as the bus are required to stop.
• Drivers must also stop at least 20 feet from the bus, when its lights are flashing and the stop arm is out.

School bus drivers can report a violator’s license plate number to the police. If that happens, the violator is required to tell the police who was driving or to face charges themselves.

School zones have serious laws, too. The speed limit for all school zones is 20 miles per hour from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. on school days. Motorists cannot pass another car in a school zone. Pedestrians also have the right of way in school zones, cross walks, etc.

Drivers who receive tickets for these offenses MUST appear in court. If convicted, drivers face fines of $300 for first-time offenses; and $1,000 for repeat offenders. Also, the Illinois Secretary of State may suspend your license for up to three months, which means you will probably have to hire an attorney.

Public and private schools in Palos Park may request an officer to ride on along routes where motorists are not complying with school bus laws by calling Chief Joe Miller at 708-671-3771 or emailing [email protected].

Parents, school staff or those who witness violators disobeying school bus and school zone laws in Palos Heights should contact police there at 708-448-5060 or 911.