The accident of Derek Caron with a school bus (Sept. 27) is indeed a tragedy. I am hopeful that the authorities – the Auburn School Department, the bus garage, the Auburn Police Department – consider this as a wake-up call.

The Falcon Drive/Court Street intersection is, indeed, very dangerous, and a traffic light certainly would help. The police occasionally manage the traffic but do not arrive early enough to make a difference.

From my experience of driving my kids to school, I can positively say school bus drivers are a rash lot. They pay no heed to the posted speed limits, take sharp turns (at high speeds), and do not respect the right-of-way rules that we all learn in basic driver education.

Why is it that the school bus drivers feel compelled to drive fast and rashly? Perhaps the underlying reason lies in the whole bussing schedule – number of routes, length of the routes, number of buses, and the same bus (and the driver) doing multiple routes. If one of the reasons for that is the budget issue the school system faces year after year, then I would say that it is a small price to pay for the safety of our kids. The school department needs to work closely with the bus garage to examine this issue in depth.

I do hope that we learn lessons from this tragedy, and work to improve the whole situation.

Vinay Desai, Auburn