By now you might think that people would be cognizant of what fall means. No, not preseason football; the start of the school year. Which means kids traveling to and from school buildings — most of them in school buses.

Nearly every year we urge the public to put students’ safety first on the road. Err on the side of caution, we say; slow down, look twice, put your phone down. Every year we hope people take the message to heart.

Apparently not. On Tuesday a Slippery Rock School District bus carrying six students was rear-ended in a chain-reaction crash on Route 173 in Brady Township. According to emergency responders the bus and a vehicle behind it were stopped on the road when a third vehicle failed to stop in time, resulting in a three vehicle crash.

Luckily, in this instance, no one was hospitalized and the bus was able to drive away from the scene. But “luckily” simply isn’t good enough when it comes to the safety and security of children being ferried to and from school every day.

They can’t control what occurs on the road around them. You can — and you need to be alert during the morning and afternoon commutes, when school buses are on the roads and creating stop-and-start traffic as they pick up and drop off students in your community. Everyone’s goal should be to make this an accident-free year for school buses across Butler County.

If you need a primer (or a reminder) of all the rules when it comes to school bus safety, you can find them here: http://bit.ly/2bA9qzX.

We recommend taking the time to click through them, even if you feel like you’ve got a good handle on what you should be doing after spotting one of those big yellow buses trundling down the road.

Once again, just to drive the message home: better safe than sorry.