ALTON, Ill. — A school bus driver, school district transportation department director and local businesses have teamed up to raise awareness among motorists of stopping for children boarding and exiting school buses, The Telegraph reports.

The initiative, Students Take Our Priority (STOP), aims to make motorists more aware of the school bus stop arm and crossing arm, according to the newspaper. Marla Turner, the Illinois Central School Bus driver who is involved in the project, told The Telegraph that the idea was sparked by a rise in motorists driving around school buses that were loading or unloading, especially in light of motorists being distracted by their phones while driving.

Turner has asked local businesses to display safety messages from the group on their electronic signs. Chris Norman, the Alton School District director of transportation who is also working on STOP, told the newspaper the district may include materials in the information sent home to parents and that he is working with school resource officers to get the word out.

Norman told The Telegraph that another goal of the project is to make sure parents know that the rules about the stop arm also apply to them when they are driving in a school parking lot, just as they would on a city street.

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