By Staff
As mentioned on the front page of this edition of The Standard, soon officials with the Escambia County Sheriff's Office will be teaming up with the Escambia County Board of Education and bus drivers to protect school children from automobile drivers who violate the law.
By riding on school buses and following them in cruisers, law enforcement officers will be able to identify drivers who don't stop when they encounter stopped school buses, and ticket those drivers.
What may have an even greater effect on the safety of school children who ride the bus is the deterrent effect of letting the public know that law enforcement officers could be riding along with any school bus they encounter.
As with "Click It or Ticket" campaigns like the one the Sheriff's Office will conduct around Labor Day, letting drivers know that members of the Sheriff's Office are going to be concentrating their efforts toward making roads safer can be enough to affect the behavior of drivers.
While getting into a car should mean automatically buckling up and the sight of a school bus should signal all drivers to use extra caution, too often that is not the case and the results can be tragic. Law enforcement efforts in these two campaigns should do a great deal toward changing that.