School Bus Drivers Want To Slam Brakes On $250 Street Parking Fines: ‘We Are Not Truckers’ – Cure In The Works

City Councilwoman Eneida Martinez, co-chair of the Ordinance Committee, says she will commence a special meeting to exempt school buses from new regulations targeting heavy commercial vehicles from street parking, a measure urged by bus drivers.

Litigious City Councilwoman Maria Pereira, in a Facebook post, however, pledges to meet with “a lawyer…should the City Council and Police Commission attempt to create an exemption for school buses serving the BPS.”

More on this from Brian Lockhart, CT Post:

Under a recently-revised municipal standing and parking ordinance targeting tractor trailers, school buses and other commercial vehicles left in public rights of way, such route breaks could technically result in Van Norden and colleagues being fined $250 by police. So she has launched an online change.org petition urging the City Council to not ticket school buses during school hours and “allow drivers basic human decency.”

“I get the ordinance as it pertains to other vehicles,” she said. “I just think we are not the same. What we do is different.”

The changes took effect Aug. 6. While in the works for a while and advertised on council meeting agendas, some of those affected by the ordinance, like school bus drivers, were caught off guard. As of Thursday, Van Norden’s petition had garnered over 400 signatures and, more importantly, sympathetic responses from a couple key elected officials.