This is Michael Schwab I am Brittany Stahl’s father and the grandfather of the three beautiful children killed at the school bus stop in Rochester on Oct. 30.
Someone was kind enough to forward me a story that aired recently on a South Bend television station regarding a mother in North Liberty and near-miss incidents involving school buses.
We were not fortunate enough to have a near-miss incident to speak about — we lost three beautiful children that day — but I have been doing a lot of thinking and research. Do you think Indiana residents really know how many near-miss incidents occur each year in Indiana and across the United States?
More than 3,100 near-miss incidents involving school buses in Indiana in a single day. A near miss is when a car actually blows past the school bus stop arm. I think it’s even more horrifying when you think of the fact that in calendar year 2018 more than 550,000 near-miss incidents occurred in Indiana. It’s frightening.
Expand the survey to nationwide and you will find more than 80,000 near-miss incidents involving vehicles blowing past school bus stop arms in a single day, more than 15 million per year. It’s epidemic and we must do something about this now.
As you can imagine, my family is grieving the loss of three beautiful children taken from us when a driver blew through a school bus stop arm and hit them at a high speed and never touching the brakes. It’s time for action and we are reaching out to you, to local media, all residents of Indiana to help us get meaningful new legislation passed in Indiana and help prevent any more school bus related incidents be them near miss, injury or fatalities.
We have started a page “www.maxstrongforever.com” and “Facebook.com/maxstrongforever” and are going to be working to get legislators, the governor and municipalities across Indiana to pass legislation requiring all school buses in Indiana to have school bus stop arm cameras.
Sixteen states across the U.S. have already passed legislation and we feel now is the time to make it happen in Indiana, but we need your help and the help of the entire community and residents across the state to join in the cause.
Lebanon Indiana School Corp. installed these units on all 39 of their buses this year. It was a $40,000 investment they feel is well worth it to protect our children.
We need the entire state to buy in and the public can show their support by going to the website and clicking the link and joining the cause.
With more than 550,000 near miss school bus incidents involving cars blowing pass the school bus stop arm, we have been lucky more children are not killed each day. We were not so lucky, we lost three on that fateful day. Let’s not test luck any further and take action before luck runs out again for another family.
