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In just a few days,\u00a0all Southwest Florida\u00a0students will be headed back to the classroom as summer vacation comes to a close.\u00a0This means\u00a0our roadways will see a significant\u00a0increase in pedestrian and automobile traffic, including those bright yellow school buses carrying our most precious cargo.<\/p>\n
Every year, residents are stumped when it comes to the law of stopping for a school bus, which can lead to disastrous consequences. To make sure you\u2019re on the right side of the law this school year, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office encourages you to \u201cknow before you go\u201d.<\/p>\n
RULE #1:<\/strong>\u00a0If you are going the same way as a school bus that is flashing red lights and has the stop arm extended, you must stop behind the bus and not move until the bus retracts the stop arm and turns off the red flashing lights.<\/p>\n RULE #2:<\/strong>\u00a0If you are going the opposite way of the school bus that is flashing red lights and has the stop arm extended, you must stop in front of the bus and not move until the bus retracts the stop arm and turns off the flashing red lights\u2026..UNLESS:<\/p>\n \u2022 You are on a divided highway and the roads are separated by an unpaved space by at least 5 feet or,<\/p>\n \u2022 a raised median or,<\/p>\n \u2022 You are on a divided highway and the roadways are separated by a physical barrier.<\/p>\n Although monetary fines vary slightly throughout the State of Florida due to additional fees placed by individual counties and municipalities,\u00a0this violation has a fine of $266 in Lee County, and carries with it four (4) points assessed to the violators driver\u2019s license.<\/strong><\/p>\n In addition, if the school bus is passed on the side which children enter and exit, the violation is a mandatory court appearance, and if a second or subsequent violation of State Statute 316.172 occurs within a five year period, the driver\u2019s license of the violator will be suspended for no less than six months and no more than one year.<\/p>\n If you have questions regarding this safety and security tip, contact the Lee County Sheriff’s Office at 477-1000. If you would like to report a fraud or scam, call the agencies fraud line at 258-3292.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In just a few days,\u00a0all Southwest Florida\u00a0students will be headed back to the classroom as summer vacation comes to a close.\u00a0This means\u00a0our roadways will see a significant\u00a0increase in pedestrian and… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36632"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}