Nueces County Sheriff’s patrol intensifies traffic enforcement in Calallen, targeting drivers ignoring school bus signals, a serious safety concern for children.<\/p>\n
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 Nueces County Sheriff\u2019s deputies are cracking down on traffic violations in a Calallen neighborhood, but they say the biggest problem is drivers ignoring school bus signals.<\/p>\n
One car after another, deputies are pulling drivers over in this South Calallen neighborhood, but the main issue, Nueces County Sheriff\u2019s Patrol Operations Captain Roland Martinez Jr. said, is drivers not stopping for school buses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe school bus stop signs come out, and they\u2019re experiencing people driving around them, ignoring them and not stopping like they\u2019re supposed to, like the law requires them to,\u201d Martinez said.<\/p>\n
A neighbor shared this video of a typical morning routine, where a parent is helping her child onto the bus and a truck passes by.<\/p>\n
Calallen ISD Chief of Police Beryl Smith said it\u2019s an ongoing issue in several parts of the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have personally seen people coming to the front of the bus, and they\u2019re stopping right before the bus. They\u2019re not giving that distance, because there are kids who are going to exit and cross in front of them,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
In recent weeks, Martinez has dispatched officers to the area when kids are heading to and from school.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn that time span, we did catch one person disregarding the traffic control devices that come off the school buses, and in that short two-week span, we issued a citation. But ever since then, I talked to leadership in that area and the HOA, and they said it has decreased \u2014 they\u2019re not seeing that anymore. And we have been out there in the mornings during pickup and drop-off times and in the afternoon,\u201d Martinez said.<\/p>\n
Calallen ISD Transportation Coordinator Corey Charles said the warning lights and signs on buses are visible to drivers from all directions.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo our buses are loaded with amber warning lights and red warning lights. Our amber lights warn drivers that we are about to stop \u2014 that\u2019s at 200 feet. By the time we reach that distance, we stop the bus, and as soon as we open our doors, the red lights and stop signs are activated,\u201d Charles said.<\/p>\n
Martinez said fines can range from $500 to $1,250.<\/p>\n
Officers will continue to monitor the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything pertaining to children and their safety, we\u2019re going to pay close attention to it, and we\u2019re going to enforce the law to make sure people get the message. Really, just help us do that \u2014 obey traffic laws, stop behind school buses, stop behind the stop signs,\u201d Martinez said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nueces County Sheriff’s patrol intensifies traffic enforcement in Calallen, targeting drivers ignoring school bus signals, a serious safety…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-213679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}