On Thursday, April 11, the Minnesota Senate passed a transportation policy bill, which includes school bus safety language authored by me. This provision allows school districts and school bus contractors to install supplemental warning systems on school buses.

These additional lights make our school buses more visible to drivers and provide better safety for crossing students. The Department of Public Safety has been involved in drafting this legislation to ensure that the provisions comply with federal school bus law. I appreciate Becker School District for bringing this forward, showing how they want to try to use this system to improve our students’ safety.

 When the Senate Transportation Committee heard my legislation on Wed., March 20, Brad Lundell, a representative of the Minnesota Association for Pupil Transportation, testified in support of the bill. Lundell shared how the discussion about supplemental warning systems on school buses first took place back in 2018. However, it was not until the special session of 2021 that a pilot program was created to allow school districts to use the supplemental lighting system. 

“The pilot project expired on August 1, 2022,” Lundell noted. “The Backer School District expressed an interest and then was surprised to find that it was a pilot project, not state law. So, this would make it ongoing state law by lifting the sunset on the pilot project.”

Additionally, Thomas Risley, the transportation director for the Becker Public Schools, offered his support of my bill. Risley shared about how Becker took advantage of the pilot project to prevent school bus stop arm violations. As a result of the pilot project, Becker Public Schools now has 10 of these systems on 32 of the school buses, and the school district has seen success in reducing stop arm violations. 

“Us at Becker just want our school district to be proactive with technology to prevent stop arm violations for the safety of all students, assets and surrounding motorists,” Risley shared.