At 7 a.m. every day, I walk my children to the bus stop. It’s a chilly, dark trip.

Even so, there’s no way I’m letting them walk there alone. The bus picks them up at the end of our street, where it intersects with a two-lane road. That road is a notoriously busy cut-through between Clemson and Central. Each morning it’s full of cars, almost all ignoring the 35-mph speed limit.

To board the bus, my daughters have to cross that road. And every morning, I stand there like a hawk, glaring at the impatient drivers stopped in both directions.

Don’t you dare, I’m thinking. Keep your foot on that brake pedal. I don’t care if you’re five minutes late to work. That’s my child walking in front of your car.

Usually, everything is fine. The girls sprint to the bus, I wave, and they’re gone.

Thursday, though, offered a reminder of why I’m standing there in the cold every morning. The bus rolled to a stop, as usual, its roof lights blinking red. The little STOP sign on the side started to come out. My children stepped off the curb.

As always, I looked both ways to check for cars. And there, to the left, was my greatest fear: a vehicle that wasn’t stopping — even though state law says it must. The car was in the lane closest to us, coming fast. If my kids walked into the road, they’d be hit, no question.

“WAIT!” I yelled. “He’s not gonna stop!”

My children, bless their little quick reflexes, froze. The car sped by in a blur. I saw the face of a young man at the wheel. As he passed, I squinted at his license plate but couldn’t read it. He was going too fast, and it was dark.

The girls got on the bus, and I walked home, trembling.

At almost the exact time of our near-miss, another car hit a different Pickens County school bus. The bus was stopped, and the car plowed into its rear. No one was hurt, evidently, but two students were taken to the hospital complaining of headaches.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, approximately 51,000 children were injured in school bus mishaps from 2001 to 2003. Almost one-quarter of those injuries happened while a child was getting on or off the bus.

A few days ago, I was driving somewhere, running late, in a hurry. A school bus coming from the opposite direction stopped a few hundred feet ahead of me. I stopped. Three or four kids got off the bus, then stood next to it, chatting. The bus driver waited for them to cross the street in front of him.

It was a minute or two before the kids finally decided to amble across the road. I was annoyed. Muttering under my breath.

Then I saw the mother, waiting for her child on a front porch. The boy ran to her. She wrapped her arms around him, smiling. He squealed in delight.

That’s why we need to slow down.

Jeanne Malmgren can be reached at malmgrenjeanne@yahoo.com.