Protect W.Va. School Children
By the News-RegisterA piece of legislation approved Tuesday by the West Virginia House of Delegates would provide important new protections for school children. Unfortunately, it is precisely the type of bill that so often "falls through the cracks" during the final days of a legislative session. We urge state senators not to allow that to happen this year.
Several Northern Panhandle legislators sponsored the measure, HB 3105. Its initial version was intended to establish zones around school bus stops where penalties for selling illegal drugs would be the same as those for dealing them in or near school buildings. By itself, the measure merited being enacted.
But another stipulation has been added to it in the form of an amendment.
Earlier this year, legislation enhancing the penalties for motorists who pass stopped school buses was suggested. It did not proceed, so proponents of the action included it as an amendment to HB 3105.
Penalties roughly equivalent to those for drunken drivers would be imposed by the bill against motorists who pass stopped school buses. Our view is that the two offenses are both serious in nature. Both intoxicated drivers and those who, sober or not, pass stopped buses are putting the public at risk.
A bill concerning drivers who pass stopped school buses was proposed last year, but stalled in the Legislature - even though it was prompted by the death of a child hit by a car that had passed her bus.
The two items included in HB 3105 this year - keeping drug dealers away from school bus stops and protecting children on school buses - are too important to let "fall through the cracks." State senators should follow the House's lead and approve the measure.
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EllisWyatt
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04-01-09 9:28 PM
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Why can't kids walk to their bus stops anymore? In the morning, the bus picks up kids 8 times on the same street in less than 3/4 of a mile! There are no real bus stops. The bus stops and picks up kids in front of their houses! They delay us and they encouarge sloth in children by telling them they don't have to walk 2 blocks to the bus stop! Is it a bus stop if the bus picks up a kid at their front steps?
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Mom2Four
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04-01-09 9:27 PM
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nutter - it doesn't specify they have to hit a child, it imposes stiffer penalties on cars that pass buses, regardless of whether they hit a kid. For example, all the helicopter mommies that insist on picking their children up in front of the school dodging buses. All because their kid is "too cool" to ride the bus that is provided for them.
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reasoh
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04-01-09 2:53 PM
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Since now Tobacco users are paying for childrens health care the legislature should pass a resolution formally thanking them for not giving up their habit after the latest tax increase. On behalf of the children may I say thank you Smokers
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TruthSeeker
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04-01-09 1:31 PM
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Will every place a bus stops constitute a "school bus stop"? If so this sounds more like to me a way to expand stiffer penalties for drug dealers not a way to keep our children safe. Want to keep a guy selling a little bit of weed off the streets a little longer? Well the school bus stops at his next door neighbor's house so he's selling drugs within 1000 feet of a school bus stop.
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anutterview
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04-01-09 1:05 PM
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Wouldn't the driver that passed a bus and hit a child already be guilty of reckless driving, failure to maintian vehicular control,failure to obey traffic signals, manslaugher, and posibly vehicular homicide. If they weren't procecuted on those charges, what makes you think they would be procecuted under HB3105?
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