Ahead of the new school year, Maryland drivers are being asked to be careful and stop for school buses.

On Wednesday, Maryland Department of Transportation and Howard County leaders stressed the importance of safety around school buses, while also sharing data about the number of times drivers put students at risk last school year.

Reckless driving around school buses

When you see a school bus with yellow lights flashing, it means you need to be prepared to stop.

When those lights switch to red, and you see the bus’s stop signs and stopping arm extend — that means you need to stop.

Chrissy Nizer, Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration administrator, said not enough drivers are following these rules.

“The reason for these rules is to protect our children getting on or off the bus,” Nizer said.

Nizer was one of several speakers on Wednesday outside of Thomas Viaduct Middle School in Hanover, asking drivers to be more careful around school buses.

Last school year, according to Nizer, school buses fitted with auto enforcement cameras issued more than 20,000 citations.

Nizer said that the number could’ve been a lot higher, since only nine of 24 jurisdictions have school buses with these cameras.

In Howard County, the cameras issued 8,285 citations during the last school year. That equals around 46 citations each school day.

“Forty-six times per day that our children were placed in unnecessary harm,” said HCPSS superintendent Bill Barnes. “As a community, we have to do better than this.”

Bolstering enforcement

For the first few weeks of the new school year, Howard County Police will increase patrols around roads surrounding all schools in the county.

These patrols will focus on speeding, distracted driving and drivers failing to stop for pedestrians.

Police also get help from speed cameras that are posted in school zones. Last month, the Howard County Council removed the eight-camera limit under the county code.

This means police could get more in the future.

“At this point, we don’t really have any plans to add anymore,” said Lt. Chris Valentine. “But it’s good to have that in our pocket if we need to.”

Tracy Downard, who supervises all of Howard County’s 59 crossing guards, said that over the last few years she has seen an increasing number of drivers near schools.

She said it makes slowing down around school buses and schools even more important.

“We’re coming out of the COVID years [where] a lot of kids didn’t want to ride the school bus,” Downard said. “[But all of the extra cars] just increases the traffic around the schools, and the pedestrians that do have to cross are dealing with higher traffic volumes.”

WJZ is a media partner of The Baltimore Banner. See the original report.