School bus accidents in Homestead and Florida are thankfully not very common. School bus drivers are trained to transport children safely and passenger car drivers are taught to slow down and stop when children are entering or disembarking a bus. While car accident collisions are far more common, however, this does not mean that school buses are completely safe. Unfortunately, some negligent drivers illegally drive around school buses that are stopped, putting children at risk.
If your child uses school buses in Homestead or any Florida community, you will want to teach your child a few safety tips to ensure that they can avoid a pedestrian collision, even if drivers are negligent:
1) Teach your child to look both ways when getting off a bus.
While children may simply rush into moving traffic, expecting it to be stopped, there may be drivers who ignore the rules. Teach your child to look for traffic before proceeding. This is a good skill that will help them when they walk to school, too.
2) Teach your child to walk to a bus stop.
Running to a bus stop brings with it extra dangers, since drivers may not see a child running and a child may easily trip and fall while running, causing injury.
3) Teach your child to make eye contact with drivers when crossing streets or hopping off the bus.
When disembarking a bus or getting to the bus, children face the biggest danger when they are crossing the street. Teach your children to wait until cars have stopped completely and teach them to make eye contact to make sure that drivers see them.
4) Teach your child to be mindful when getting on or off the school bus.
One of the dangers that children face as pedestrians is that they are rarely focused on safety. Children may be focused on playing, on chatting with friends, or on what happened at school that day. This can cause them to hop on the bus or disembark and run right across the street before looking. Teach your child that when getting on or off the school bus, they need to think about safety and notice what is happening around them.
5) Teach your child to only cross at crosswalks.
Crossing between parked cars is especially dangerous for children, since motorists often cannot see smaller children around vehicles. Drivers may also not be looking for children outside of crosswalks. Teaching your child to only cross at crosswalks can help protect them from pedestrian accidents.
Repeating these lessons often and practicing regularly are the best ways to make sure these lessons stick. If your child was injured by a negligent driver, speak with an injury attorney today. You can speak to an attorney by contacting the law firm of Flaxman Law Group at any time. The attorneys at Flaxman Law Group have been helping plaintiffs like you for decades and have already secured more than $100 million in jury awards and settlements in behalf of thousands of plaintiffs. Contact Flaxman Law Group today to find out whether you have a claim.