SCHOOL BUSES TO OPERATE CAUTION LIGHTS AT ALL STOPS.

Byline: Kevin F. Sherry Daily News Staff Writer

A new law that will take effect Thursday requires school buses to flash red lights when they load or unload students, whether the students are going to cross the street or not.

Motorists still need to stop whenever they see flashing red lights on school buses, but they should be seeing those lights more often, said Sgt. Neal Rein of the Simi Valley Police Department.

The old law mandated that school bus lights flash only when students needed to cross streets.

Some buses have stop-sign extensions that alert drivers when they should stop, but not all buses are outfitted with the device, Rein said.

Earlier this month, the California Highway Patrol met in Camarillo with representatives from Ventura County school districts to outline changes to the law and to see whether any districts planned to request exemptions to the new law, said Sgt. Claude Robillard of the Thousand Oaks Police Department.

The CHP could not provide any information about exemption requests.

The Ventura County Sheriff's Department plans to issue advisories about the new law, said Thousand Oaks police Chief Kathy Kemp. But as with all new laws, law enforcement agencies likely will give drivers a brief honeymoon, Kemp said.

``We go through a period of time when we do advisements,'' she said.

All lanes of traffic must stop when a bus flashes its lights, Robillard said. Most bus stops are off major traffic arteries.

``Unfortunately, the drivers have been really poor about doing that,'' Robillard said. ``We're going to see a lot of people violating that initially.''

A first-offense conviction for passing a stopped school bus now results in a fine of $432.