Although Tropical Storm Irene interrupted the start of school for some local students, most are officially back in their classrooms, cracking open textbooks and getting reacquainted with friends.

And, because Maine is such a rural state, thousands of these students commute to school by bus. If you haven’t already seen a bus stopped in the early morning, waiting for a small child to board, or in the afternoon waiting for a child to disembark, you certainly will in the coming week.

We urge motorists to use caution in passing these buses, whether stopped on streets or in parking lots.

Maine law is quite clear about when a motorist can pass a bus, and is equally clear about the penalties for passing while red lights are flashing.

Based solely on a bus driver’s observation, operators can be convicted of a traffic infraction if they pass a stopped school bus, as can registered owners of vehicles — even if they’re not in the car at the time of the infraction.

So, if you let someone borrow your car and they pass a school bus, you — as the registered owner — can be found in violation, even if you were miles away at the time.

The penalty for a first offense? A hefty $250 fine.

Second offense within three years of the first? Mandatory 30-day license suspension.

The real risk of passing a stopped bus, though, is the potential for injuring a child who might dart into the street to get to their friends on the bus, not necessarily looking out for cars.

Even though most drivers know passing a stopped bus is illegal, it happens all too frequently and there’s not much bus drivers can do to stop a motorist who is in too much of a hurry to wait for the bus to roll.

Any motorist who has an urge to pass a bus ought to think about the very real possibility that another motorist on another street is thinking the very same thing as someone they know and love is attempting to board a bus.

Never mind that it’s illegal. No driver’s desire for haste is justified in needlessly risking the life of a child.

? ? ?

On Friday, some of our readers asked a very good question: Why was Carrie Landry’s pit bull returned to her?

According to eyewitnesses — including Landry’s 29-year-old sister Marilyn Pinkham — Landry’s dog attacked a young girl in Lewiston’s Kennedy Park on Aug. 18, tearing a chunk of flesh from the child’s inner thigh. The dog was neither licensed nor vaccinated.

This week, Landry of Auburn and Pinkham of Lewiston were both charged in connection with the attack (Pinkham with allowing the dog to roam at large and Landry with failure to get her dog licensed and vaccinated), and the dog was returned to Landry.

While returning the animal may be acceptable in another case, it is not so here.

Landry and Pinkham both told the Sun Journal that neither of them is to blame for the attack. They both said the 11-year-old child who was bitten was teasing the dog, and wouldn’t stop holding out her hand to the leashed animal.

They said that, at some point, the dog was goaded to attack the girl.

Both women also said the girl exaggerated her wounds, and that she was barely bleeding after the animal was pulled off her. That is simply not the case. The girl’s family supplied the Sun Journal with photos of her injury, an image so gory it was not published.

The fact that the sisters are so adamant about their total lack of responsibility here is enough to suggest that they will not be responsible for this twitchy dog in the future.

Whose child will be attacked next?

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The opinions expressed in this column reflect the views of the ownership and editorial board.