Alex Paul
If the Sweet Home School District provides bus service for any rural families it should for all.
That was the contention of one family that lives on Whiskey Butte, in an area of a bus route being considered for adjustments due to safety issues.
Mark and Mary Baker rode the route Thursday in a bus driven by L.D. Ellison, district transportation supervisor. Members of the district’s bus safety committee present were Cheryl Hicks, driver trainer supervisor, Tammy Coleman and Diane Hopper.
Both of the Bakers have school bus backgrounds. Mr. Baker was a bus maintenance supervisor in the Yamhill county area and Mrs. Baker drove school bus for more than a year.
“We live eight miles from school and we’ll fight this tooth and nail,” Mr. Baker said before the drive began. We’ll write letters to the editor, to the commissioner of schools…you won’t discriminate against us.”
If the school district has issues with road safety, the safety committee should talk to officials from Linn county because it’s a county road, Baker said.
“You have to drive this road at a safe and prudent speed,” Mr. Baker said. “He praised the bus driver who handles the route and says he has no qualms about her abilities or professionalism.”
Mr. Baker said that from his experience with school buses he knows that most bus accidents don’t occur on gravel roads but on pavement. He also knows that school buses are among the safest vehicles on the road nationwide.
“We’re not trying to just pull transportation away from your kids,” driver trainer Cheryl Hicks said.
“But, you can’t discriminate against children just because they live on a gravel road,” Mrs. Baker said.
Mr. Baker said it’s important that the right type of bus and driver be assigned to routes that include gravel roads.
The school district provides bus transportation for elementary students who live more than one mile from school and more than 1 1/2 miles from the junior high and high school, Mrs. Hicks explained.
“That’s unless children would have to walk in unsafe areas due to hazardous traffic patterns,” Hicks said. “It’s not our intent to put a great hardship on families.”
Mrs. Baker said she believes the bus drivers are well trained and that most accidents are caused by drivers of other vehicles.
The safety committee is concerned on some of the gravel roads because they are too narrow to allow an incoming vehicle to pass the bus safely, there are few adequate turn around areas and the buses are traveling on the roads when it is dark on the morning routes during the winter months.
“I think your safety issues could be solved by assigning the proper drivers and machines to the routes,” Mr. Baker said. “You need to haul everyone to school. If you go to Cascadia to pick up kids you need to pick up my kid.”
During the bus trip, trouble spots were pointed out and the group dismounted the vehicle to examine a large portion of Whiskey Butte road that has sloughed down the embankment.
Mr. Baker said that county had fixed area and it was much better than it had been. He added that the county does an excellent job maintaining the roadway.