 Recently, we've heard about school bus drivers in Pike County having to watch as vehicles pass their stopped buses while they are loading and unloading children. Apparently this is happening a lot on U.S. 23, so this week I decided to ride one of those buses and see for myself. My driver was Preston Reif, who says people pass his bus every single day as he is unloading children. Mainly it's when I'm stopped either loading or unloading kids, cars will pass the bus. Most of them will stop, but there's a lot that don't and some will slow down, but they'll still pass me and then there's others that don't even slow down. I've got seven stops on 23 and I've had cars pass me at all seven of them. The day I rode, sure enough, cars pass the bus on five of those stops. My yellow lights are on, slowing down, my sign is out. There's one and another. You would think that everyone knows the rules about stopping for buses. On the four lane, anything going the direction of the bus, if it's a divided highway, anything that's going the direction of the bus has to stop, but the other direction does not. And that's not a rule imposed by the school system. It's the law. When that stop sign comes out on that school bus, that's the same as running a stop sign or traffic light or anything like that because you know, that sign comes out for a reason and you know, they may be a kid crossing the front of that bus or you know, it's hard to tell them and you know, people need to pay the respect to the stop sign on the bus the same as they would at an intersection or at a traffic light. It's the same thing. The students on Preston's bus notice when drivers run the stop sign and most of those are in elementary school. Yeah, there's a lot of them say, aren't they supposed to stop or why, you know, why didn't he stop? Well, he's supposed to, but he didn't. I mean, they see it. They're, you know, they're younger kids and they even, you know, they understand what they're supposed to do. Local law enforcement agencies say they are going to step up patrols in these problem areas, which is a relief to drivers like Preston Reif who can only hope that drivers on US 23 start paying more attention to his bus when it has stopped to unload children. I know a lot of people like to get in a hurry. They're on their way home or on their way to work and that's no excuse for the safety of the kids. It's aggravating and I'm, you know, I feel helpless because there's nothing I can do but haunt my horn. See you. Have a good day. Be careful.