DANVILLE, Ind. — Police officers in Danville are working overtime to help stop people from driving around school buses when they shouldn’t be. It's part of the Stop Arm Violation Enforcement, or S.A.V.E., program that’s federally funded with grants administered by the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute.
The officers aren’t just waiting in school zones but actually following buses along their routes. It's extra work to keep kids safe.
"This isn’t officers that are on duty, these are officers coming in on their time off to specifically do this project," said Detective Nate Lien with the Danville Police Department. “We want it to be preventive. We want people to know we’re out there. We want people to know that we’re watching the buses.”
The Indiana Criminal Justice Institute says Danville is one of more than 200 agencies in the state to participate in the S.A.V.E. program.
"That’s really more of how we measure success," said Devon McDonald, executive director with the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute. "They get out there. They get the message out and that we see driving behaviors improve and eventually maybe someday the number of violations start to drop.”
They say last year alone, officers in Indiana stopped over 2,700 drivers for stop-arm violations.
In Danville, it’s still an issue.
“Since the start of school we’ve had five violations," Lien said. "In under two weeks we’ve had five vehicles stopped and cited for passing school buses.”
“There’s really no good reason to run a school bus stop arm. You’re not only putting your life in danger, you’re putting a child’s life at risk, some other motorists life at risk," McDonald said. "Treat that school bus with its stop arm out as if it’s your kid getting on and off the bus.”