Bus-Signal Bill Frustrates Still-Grieving O.C. Father

SACRAMENTO â€”  Thomas Lanni is nothing short of bewildered after his first brush with the business of making laws in California.

When his 7-year-old son was struck and killed by a pickup truck while getting off a school bus in Laguna Niguel in April, Lanni decided to salvage something positive from the family tragedy. He began pushing for a state law making it a mandatory requirement that bus drivers flash warning lights to get traffic to stop whenever children are disembarking.

Lanni, an electrical engineer, figured the law was just plain common sense and would be a legislative slam dunk.

But not in Sacramento. Despite the best efforts of Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), one of the Legislature’s veteran lawmakers, the bill was watered down in committee because of fears that the flashing lights could cause traffic accidents and congestion.

Bergeson’s measure, which won final approval Tuesday in the Senate on a 38-0 vote, gives school districts broad discretion to pick and choose the bus stops where drivers should flash the warning lights.

To Lanni, that’s simply not good enough. “They’ve emasculated the bill,� he said. “In it’s present form, this bill is tantamount to no change at all. I don’t know what the underlying motivations are, but it’s apparent the people in Sacramento are out of touch with reality.�

With the measure now headed to the desk of Gov. Pete Wilson, who has not taken a stance on the issue, Lanni said he might write a letter asking the governor to veto it. “My fear is passage of this bill will lead people to believe something has been done, when in reality nothing has been done,� he said.

Bergeson said she understands Lanni’s frustrations with the ways and wiles of the state Legislature, but emphasized that her measure is a good first step and does make some changes.

“We pushed as hard as we could,� Bergeson said. “I think we came out with the best we could. It will be a benefit, and lives will be saved.�

Existing law requires all cars to stop and wait when the warning lights on a school bus are activated, but the driver is required to flash the lights only when students are going to cross the street. In addition, the driver must escort all pupils in preschool through the eighth grade and carry a hand-held “STOP� sign to alert approaching vehicles.

Bergeson’s bill would leave it up to school districts to decide if the warning lights should be used at certain dangerous stops, even those where no children are expected to cross a street. But a district would have to get permission from the California Highway Patrol and the local traffic engineering department before designating such a stop.

The bill was extensively altered during a Senate Transportation Committee hearing after lawmakers grew fearful that use of the warning lights at every stop would do more harm than good.

M. Mehdi Morshed, a committee consultant, said mandatory flashing lights would have had “serious ramifications,� giving children a false sense of security, causing traffic congestion and increasing the likelihood of accidents. The problems would be particularly amplified at bus stops along busy, multilane thoroughfares where traffic speeds often approach 50 m.p.h., Morshed said.

“On the surface it looks like a wonderful idea,� Morshed said. “But when you apply it to major arterials, it just simply doesn’t work.�

Studies have also found that when people are faced with too many impediments during the daily drive--be it a stop sign, a red traffic light or an ambulance siren--they eventually begin to disregard them. The same, Morshed said, could happen with the flashing warning lights of a school bus.

Lanni doesn’t accept such justifications.

“They talk about driver inconvenience,� he said. “I suggest someone talk to the fellow who hit my son and ask him how much of an inconvenience it would have been to stop. I think he’d say he would have been glad to stop.�

Lanni’s son, Tommy, was killed after only his second day at school in Orange County, where the family had moved from New York. The boy was riding the school bus for the first time and, apparently by mistake, got off one stop too early. He was hit as he tried to cross to a gated housing complex that he probably believed was his neighborhood. Neither the driver of the car that struck Tommy nor the driver of the school bus was charged in the accident.

His parents filed a lawsuit against the Capistrano Unified School District but have not specified how much they are seeking. An earlier damage claim filed with the district sought $10 million to compensate for the boy’s death.

Lanni notes that mandatory flashing lights are the law in numerous states, among them New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Virginia, Texas and Nevada. Some states also require that school buses be equipped with flip-out stop signs, which are deployed when the bus stops to let off children.

“I’m baffled,� Lanni said. “Why does California feel there’s no need for a change when all these other states did something about it?�

He also argues that current California law fails to take into account the unpredictable nature of schoolchildren as they disembark from a bus.

“The bottom line is, we’re dealing with 5-year-olds and up,� Lanni said. “You cannot predict what they’re going to do. It can be something as simple as a dropped piece of paper that blows into the street and the kid goes after it.�

Lanni promised to be back next year to push for mandatory use of the warning lights. In the meantime, the family continues to grapple with the loss of their son.

“It’s a day-by-day thing,� he said. “We spend our Sunday mornings at the cemetery now. We’re still trying to come to grips with what happened.

“It’s pretty tough to think about what happened, the senselessness of it, then go listen to these politicians with their bureaucratic baloney, knowing that if they had done what other states have done, my son would probably be alive today. It’s hard to swallow that.�