District sees danger in four-lane crossing

WINFIELD, W.Va. — School bus drivers at Putnam County Schools are no longer allowed to cross all four lanes of a local roadway under a policy that the district recently implemented due to safety concerns.

"From the point of the bus starting and stopping, it was a long stretch to go across, and of course traffic in both directions, and at 65-70 mph … it's pretty dangerous," Charlie Tribble, transportation coordinator for Putnam County Schools, told WOWK-TV.

Tribble went on to say that because the state’s Department of Transportation (DOT) will not have a stoplight installed at the roadway’s intersection, the district felt that implementing the policy was the safest solution.

A spokesperson for the DOT told the news outlet that based on traffic pattern studies of the intersection, the department does not foresee putting a stoplight there in the near future, but that could change if the traffic patterns change.

WOWK-TV reported that in the meantime, some of Putnam County Schools’ bus routes have had to be reconfigured to accommodate the new policy.