Full Notification

Los Banos Unified School District students will be returning to school from summer break beginning August 13, 2014. The Police Department would like to remind drivers to slow down in school zones and allow extra time on the morning commute.

The Department will be deploying motorcycle officers to monitor traffic and enforce traffic violations.

“Our goal is to ensure the safety of our children as they travel to and from school. Our School Resource Officers and Motorcycle officers have been instructed to take a zero tolerance approach with traffic violations in school zones.”
- Gary Brizzee, Chief of Police

Tips offered by the National Safety Council:

Sharing the road safely with child pedestrians:

-Reduce speed in school safety zones.

-Drivers should not block the crosswalk when stopped at a red light or waiting to make a turn. Do not stop with a portion of your vehicle over the crosswalk. Blocking the crosswalk forces pedestrians to go around your vehicle and puts them in a dangerous situation.

-In a school zone when a warning flasher or flashers are blinking, you must stop to yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within a marked crosswalk or at an intersection with no marked crosswalk.

-Always stop when directed to do so by a school patrol sigh, school patrol officer or designated crossing guard.

-Children are the least predictable pedestrians and the most difficult to see.

-Take extra care to look out for children not only in school zones, but also in residential areas, playground and parks.

-Do not honk your horn, rev your engine or do anything to rush or scare a pedestrian in front of your car, even if you have the legal right-of-way.

Sharing the road safely with school buses:

-All 50 states have a law making it illegal to pass a school bus that is stopped to load or unload children.

-School buses use yellow flashing lights to alert motorist that they are preparing to stop to load or unload children. Red flashing lights and an extended stop sign arm signals to motorist that the bus is stopped and children are getting on or off the bus.

-All 50 states require that traffic in both directions stop on undivided roadways when students are entering or exiting a school bus.

-The area 10 feet around a school bus is where children are in the most danger of being hit. Stop your car far enough from the bus to allow children the necessary space to safely enter and exit the bus.

-Be alert. Children are unpredictable. Children walking to or from their bus are usually very comfortable with their surroundings. This makes them more likely to take risk, ignore hazards or fail to look both ways when crossing the street.

-Never pass a school bus on the right. It is illegal and could have tragic consequences.

To leave an anonymous crime tip call 209-827-7070 Ext. 288. If you have access to a computer and the internet you can also leave an anonymous tip at the Police Department’s web page at www.losbanos.org. At the bottom of the “Contact” page simply click on the “report graffiti and other crime” link or visit the Merced Area Crime Stoppers by telephone at 1-855-725-2420, or at www.mercedareacrimestoppers.org