Jan. 8, 2025
VIROQUA, Wis. — A targeted enforcement campaign aimed at catching drivers illegally passing school buses revealed that violations are largely isolated to specific state highway corridors rather than widespread across rural roads, Sheriff Roy Torgerson told the Vernon County Highway Safety Committee on Jan. 7, 2026.
The Vernon County Highway Safety Committee is a county subcommittee that includes representatives from law enforcement (including local departments and state patrol), emergency management, schools, hospitals, media, highway department, and Wisconsin DOT. The committee meets quarterly to review traffic accident data, discuss specific traffic incidents, analyze crash data, identify trends, recommend corrective actions, coordinate safety programs and discuss issues that pertaining to county highways that the public may bring to the county.
At the Jan. 7 committee meeting, Torgerson presented the findings of the school bus safety task force which was formed in late 2025 following a spike in complaints near Readstown. The sheriff explained that recent flagrant violations prompted the department to shift from a reactive stance to a proactive investigation.
“A couple of months ago, there was some incidents of illegal passing of school busses in the town of Kickapoo, Readstown area,” said Torgerson. “We decided that it was time to put together a task force to go around to every district in the county and just review their policies, their procedures and reporting and and just making sure everyone is clear on the law.”
You can read our previous story about those incidents here.
To get a clear picture of the situation deputies physically rode on bus routes across the county to observe traffic behavior from the driver’s perspective.
“I instructed the deputies that I wanted a deputy to ride a school bus on at least two routes in every school district, so they actually got on the bus road with kids just to see it from that side of it as well,” said Torgerson. “Talk with the drivers, make sure they know, hey, what do we need to be able to take action on this.”
While the Wisconsin State Patrol assisted in issuing citations in the Readstown area the overall data suggested the problem was not as pervasive on county backroads as initially feared.
“What we found is this appeared to be somewhat isolated,” said Torgerson. “In this particular area, it was on the state highway where these violations were occurring… but we were not seeing the problems on the rural roads.”
The sheriff also used the opportunity to clarify the specific legal requirements for drivers encountering a bus noting that the visual cues on the bus carry different legal weights.
“The law does not say anything about a stop arm,” said Torgerson. “The law just says a stopped school bus and flashing red lights.”
Despite the lower volume of citations outside the target zone Torgerson emphasized that the presence of law enforcement and the engagement with students and drivers was a positive step for public safety.
“I felt it was a very positive thing, a positive way to interact with our students, our drivers, our teachers,” said Torgerson. “And so I think it was positive all around.”
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