Lake County Sheriff Frank Leonbruno offers some sound advice for the new school year.

School has started. If you are driving, remember these simple rules:

• Yellow flashing lights on a school bus mean slow down — don’t speed up — because the bus is preparing to stop. There are likely students waiting to get on the bus or parents waiting nearby to pick up children.

• Red flashing lights on a school means stop — and wait at least 20 feet behind the bus — because children are getting on or off the school bus. Stay stopped until the red lights stop flashing, the extended stop-arm is withdrawn, and the bus begins moving.

• Even when lights aren’t flashing, watch for children, particularly in the morning or mid-afternoon, around school arrival and dismissal times. Be alert as you back out of a driveway, or drive through a neighborhood, school zone or bus stop.

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LFC Comments: Thanks to Sheriff Leonbruno for this public service announcement. We found the following graphic on-line that we thought might be helpful.

Never pass a school bus with flashing lights

The yellow flashing lights signal you to slow down and prepare to make a complete stop. When the red light flashes, your vehicle must be fully stopped, even if the “stop sign” arm is not extended on the side of the bus.

The Ohio Revised Code has a section dealing with school bus rules. Here is the link to the code section:

http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/4511.75

4511.75 Stopping for stopped school bus.

(A) The driver of a vehicle, streetcar, or trackless trolley upon meeting or overtaking from either direction any school bus stopped for the purpose of receiving or discharging any school child, person attending programs offered by community boards of mental health and county boards of developmental disabilities, or child attending a program offered by a head start agency, shall stop at least ten feet from the front or rear of the school bus and shall not proceed until such school bus resumes motion, or until signaled by the school bus driver to proceed.

[LFC Comment: We agree with the Sheriff, and a driver should stay 20 feet from the school bus.]

(F) (1) Whoever violates division (A) of this section may be fined an amount not to exceed five hundred dollars. A person who is issued a citation for a violation of division (A) of this section is not permitted to enter a written plea of guilty and waive the person’s right to contest the citation in a trial but instead must appear in person in the proper court to answer the charge.

(2) In addition to and independent of any other penalty provided by law, the court or mayor may impose upon an offender who violates this section a class seven suspension of the offender’s driver’s license, commercial driver’s license, temporary instruction permit, probationary license, or nonresident operating privilege from the range specified in division (A)(7) of section 4510.02 of the Revised Code. When a license is suspended under this section, the court or mayor shall cause the offender to deliver the license to the court, and the court or clerk of the court immediately shall forward the license to the registrar of motor vehicles, together with notice of the court’s action.

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