OUR MEMBERS AT WORK
Meet UFCW Local 175 members who work at First Student Members at First Student, some of whom are featured on the following pages, work hard every day to ensure children get to and from school safely. UFCW Local 175 represents about 340 bus drivers in Welland, 57 in Kenora, and 140 in Sault Ste. Marie. With the start of a new school year, we all need to remember to do our part, slow down, and pay attention around school buses and in school zones. At your children’s school, make sure you’re familiar with the rules for drop-off and pick-up. If you’re driving behind a bus, you MUST come to a complete stop at a safe distance when the bus’s upper red lights flash and its stop sign is extended. Drivers travelling in either direction on a road with no median must stop for a stopped bus. That means if you’re on a four-lane highway with no physical division between the directions, you MUST stop if a bus is coming toward you and puts on its flashing lights. Do not move forward until the bus’s lights have stopped flashing and the bus begins to move. If you pass a stopped school bus with its upper red lights flashing you can be charged between $400 and $2,000 plus
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| October 2016
six demerit points for a first offense. If you drive through a school zone on your commute, please slow down! School zones have lower speed limits, usually marked between 30 and 50 kilometres per hour, and are often increased fine zones, especially before and after school. Students have responsibilities too. • Be on time and wait at a safe distance from the road for your bus. • Walk 10 big steps from the front of the bus to cross the road. • Always cross the road in FRONT of the bus – never cross behind. • Look all ways for traffic before crossing, and look to the driver for a signal that it is safe as well. • While on the bus, students need to remember that their driver needs to concentrate in order to get all the students to their school safely. Behave. *Source Ministry of Transportation Ontario avaialble at: http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/safety/school-bus-safety.shtml