By Kuempel                                             H.B. No. 782
       74R232 DWS-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to use of flashing warning lights and other warning
    1-3  equipment on a school bus.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 105(b), Uniform Act Regulating Traffic on
    1-6  Highways (Article 6701d, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), as amended
    1-7  by Chapter 122, Acts of the 69th Legislature, Regular Session,
    1-8  1985, is amended to read as follows:
    1-9        (b)  When a school bus is being stopped or is stopped on a
   1-10  highway to permit school children to board or alight from the bus,
   1-11  the bus driver shall activate all flashing warning signal lights or
   1-12  other equipment on the bus designed to warn other drivers that the
   1-13  bus is stopping to load or unload children.  A school bus driver
   1-14  shall activate that equipment if the school bus is located behind a
   1-15  school bus that is stopping or stopped to load or unload children
   1-16  and the driver's bus prevents drivers of vehicles on the highway
   1-17  from seeing the loading or unloading bus.  It shall be unlawful for
   1-18  the driver of a school bus to fail to activate flashing warning
   1-19  signal lights or other equipment as required by this subsection.
   1-20  It shall also be unlawful to operate any flashing warning signal
   1-21  light on any school bus except when the light is required by this
   1-22  subsection to be activated <school bus is being stopped or is
   1-23  stopped on a highway for the purpose of permitting school children
   1-24  to board or alight from the school bus>.
    2-1        SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1995.
    2-2        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-3  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-4  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-5  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-6  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.