White House petitioned to make punishment for running through school bus stop sign, flashing lights stiffer

According to WhiteHouse.gov, a petition has been brought forth to make penalties tougher on drivers who run passed school bus stop signs or flashing red lights.

Five children were killed recently in various incidents across the country.  On October 30th, two twin brothers and a sister were killed in Indiana. On October 31st, a nine year old boy was killed in Mississippi, and on November 1st a seven year old boy was killed in Pennsylvania. Several other incidents have occurred across the country recently where children were seriously injured.

The petition states:

“Children are being injured or killed due to people running the alternating reds on school busses. individual state laws are largely ineffective and typically have no significant penalty.

We call upon our President and Congress to act by signing legislation that will keep our children safe by instituting severe penalties on people who choose to violate the red lights on a bus such as 30 days in jail, 90 day driver license suspension, 12 points on license and a mandatory minimum fine of $5000.00 for the first offense.

This is the least we the American voters will accept.”

The petition was over 94,000 short of it’s goal as of Monday afternoon.

The petition is available here.