COLUMBUS, Ohio — It's only three weeks into 2025, and already, there have been 51 school bus crashes in Ohio. Lawmakers have just introduced a bill aiming to keep students safe.
Another crash happened Friday morning. On the way to school, a Cleveland Metropolitan School District bus crashed, with a 9-year-old girl taken to the hospital for "very minor" injuries, according to Cleveland police. A 33-year-old woman was also taken to the hospital but is in "stable condition," Cleveland EMS said.
Police are still investigating who caused it.
"I pictured myself in the shoes of the parents getting a call or a visit from a state trooper telling them that their child is not going to come home from school today," Rudy Breglia, a Lorain County safety advocate, said.
Breglia started the School Bus Safety Alliance, a group dedicated to advocating for more resources to protect kids.
"Current Ohio school bus safety features are inadequate," he said.
State lawmakers agree that some districts need help.
House Reps. Cecil Thomas (D-Cincinnati) and Bernie Willis (R-Springfield) introduced H.B. 3 — which would create a $25 million school bus safety fund dedicated to improving and updating equipment.
"When it comes to buses and transporting our children, we want them to be able to apply for a grant to assist with getting that done," Thomas said.
Schools could apply for grants to buy fully illuminated stop arms, external school bus cameras, seatbelts and more.
"With a little help, they can implement their own plans from training to equipping the buses," the lawmaker added.
Thomas worked as a police officer for decades. He said he had to cite drivers on several occasions for illegally passing a school bus.
That’s why this bill raises the penalties – making passing a school bus a misdemeanor with a fine of up to 1,000 dollars. Repeated offenses could lead to a license suspension, a mandatory safety course and a $2,000 fine. All the money collected from the fines would be used to fund the grant program.
"If increasing the penalties will cause someone to think twice, then by all means, let's do that because the overall agenda here is children's safety," Thomas said.
This bill has been a passion project for Willis, who is adamant about safety reform.
"It's doing some elevating of the standards around our school buses in the same way that we establish school safety zones around our schools with criminal penalties," Willis told me back in December when the previous version of this bill was being heard.
RELATED: Gov. DeWine wants Ohio to create grant program to fund increased school bus safety, train drivers
The bill has bipartisan support, but although Breglia likes it, he thinks it doesn't go far enough. He believes seat belts should be mandatory on all buses.
"They're found in every car, have saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and it's a basic safety tool that should be in all our school buses to protect our kids,"
Lawmakers and the governor's school bus safety working group debated seat belts, deciding that they should not be mandatory.
The bill will be heard in the coming months. Luckily for school safety supporters, Willis is the chair of the Transportation Committee, so it will likely move quickly through the hearing process in the House.
Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on Twitter and Facebook.
