2022/08/29 - Mayor's Column: Back to School Safety
“AN OPEN DOOR TO O’FALLON”
A WEEKLY NOTE FROM MAYOR HERB ROACH
School is back in session so I would like to take a moment to ask everyone to drive carefully and observe speed and stop signs all around town. It is important to practice safe driving all year round, but especially important when our youngest are travel back and forth to school.
If you are behind a school bus, please do not try to pass it while it is stopped to pick up children. A child might dart out into the street while attempting to get to their bus.
It will only take a few extra seconds of your time to be extra observant and obey all the traffic laws. Children quite often forget to be safe because they are in a hurry or distracted by a fellow student. Those of us that are old enough to drive should be the ones to take the extra precautions to safeguard against an accident.
It doesn’t matter is we are 16 or 96, how do we explain to a parent that we were in a hurry and didn’t see the child? And how do we live with the fact that our lack of care and precaution caused a child to be injured, or worse. Each year over 600 child pedestrian deaths and over 14,000 child pedestrian injuries occur because of carelessness or disobeyed traffic laws. Most of those injured are children 10 or age and under; children at this age are not well-versed on traffic laws.
We are the adults and should take the extra precautions to try to prevent accidents and injuries. Would you pass the bus, speed through a yellow or red light or ignore a stop sign if we were trying to pass our drivers test?
Please drive safe. Please pay extra attention when behind the wheel. Your life or the lives of others may depend on it.
As residents of O’Fallon, you should always be able to reach out to your elected officials and ask questions about what is happening in O’Fallon. Having open communications is important to me and something I care very deeply about. Thank you for reading, and please remember, my door is always open.