Mecklenburg County supports legislation to make modifications to the seat belt laws of the Commonwealth to enable our Emergency Medical Services personnel to more effectively treat the patients we are trying to serve concurrent with our transportation of said patient to an appropriate medical care facility. This exemption will allow providers to more confidently grant care to the patients and ensure more stabilized condition for the patient at the time of arrival at the medical care facility without worrying about being in violation of the traffic safety laws.

I write in support of HB409 to correct a discrepancy in Virginia's school bus stop law to better align the law to prior legislative intent and the public's understanding of how Virginia law was intended to work. The public has understood the law to mean that traffic on a divided highway travelling opposite to a stopping school bus does not need to stop. However, under current Virginia law, drivers sometimes have to stop and sometimes don't have to stop based on where an approaching stopping school bus may ultimately intend to stop. Chaos ensues at each school bus stop twice each school day on divided highways. HB409 can rectify these daily occurrences throughout the Commonwealth. If the school bus stops at a median opening of a divided highway where there is asphalt between opposite travel lanes, then a driver would have to stop if traveling in the opposite lane. If a school bus stops somewhere just before or somewhere just after the median opening, then the driver in the opposite direction does not have to stop. One challenge in this scenario is that the school bus is approaching at speed and the other vehicles are approaching at speed; each driver has to make a very quick decision whether to stop or not, leading some to stop and others to go. And there are cars and trucks stopping in front of you unexpectantly, and cars and trucks travelling at speed behind you. The vehicles that stop uneccesarily based on the ultimate stopping location in the school bus violate a different traffic law for stopping and impeding the flow of traffic. The other unfair risks are that the school buses are deploying traffic citation cameras, and "passing" a school bus is a misdemeanor offense. The ambiguity in the Virginia Code about whether to stop or not for a school bus on a divided highway criminalizes routine driving. Many Virginia drivers don't know the current nuance about where a school bus specifically stops on a divided highway to avoid criminal misdemeanor. And with no risk of harm to the children who enter and exit from only the right curb of a divided highway, why should so many Virginia drivers be made criminals due to ambiguity in the law? Thank you for your consideration, and I hope you will enact HB409 to clarify the law to the benefit of Virginia's drivers and traffic safety.