Miami-Dade County PLUS

Ferguson High School is located on the corner of SW 162nd Avenue and SW 56th Street. Beginning from at least 6:30 a.m. every school day, drivers heading both north and south on SW 162nd Avenue and heading both east and west on SW 56th Street stop in the middle of the street to drop off students. This happens in the left and right lanes of each side of each road. The students then cross in front of cars on the roads, at great risk to their own safety and further stopping traffic. Additionally, private school buses heading east on SW 56th Street position themselves in the left lane and then turn right onto the school property cutting off the east-bound traffic in the right lane putting the student passengers at great risk to their safety and further stopping traffic. After many voicemail messages to the high school, I finally spoke with someone in the administration and he said the school board only provides one resource officer and will not approve him patrolling as early as 6:30 a.m. He did not have any suggestions and asked me for suggestions instead. I provided several suggestions and asked if I could expect to see improvement, but he said he could give no guarantees and did not indicate any action that would be taken other than speaking with the lone resource officer about my suggestions - the officer who could not be there at the time needed to implement them. Miami-Dade police need to regularly patrol the area and issue tickets to offending drivers until the situation is brought under control. The private bus drivers who violate traffic rules and put their passengers at risk should have their special licenses revoked.