Johnny Downing letter: Don't pass that stopped school bus

Johnny Downing

I have written about this before but I think it bears repeating.

How many articles are we going to read before we quit sitting on our hands and doing nothing about people passing school buses stopped to load or unload children? How many children must lose their lives before we say, “Enough?”

My wife and several of my friends drive for Abilene ISD. They report, daily, about drivers passing them, even when at the schools, loading and unloading.

Sadly, many of the guilty are parents with children in the car with them. Is it going to take a child (or children) being killed before we say, “Enough?”

It is time for everyone, and by everyone, I mean, the school board, AISD, sheriff’s department, police department. DPS, governor and all elected officials, as well as the public, to say, “Enough,” as some of our friends to the north have. It shouldn’t be a massive undertaking to make the penalty as stiff or stiffer than DUI. Isn’t the penalty for DUI so stiff because the perpetrator is likely to injure or kill an innocent person?

Now is the time to take this issue off the back burner and get serious before some child gets hurt or killed and that child may be a member of your family, or mine. “Enough said.”

— Johnny Downing, Abilene