SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (NEXSTAR) — In an effort to stop people from driving recklessly around school buses, lawmakers voted to allow for the stop arms on the back and sides of buses to be extended.

“Just driving around my community, you can see school buses stopping and cars just blowing past and you want to tell them you have to stop,” bill sponsor Rep. Janet Yang-Rohr (D-Naperville) said. “That’s a real stop sign. And so I think with this with this legislation, with this extended safety, stop arm, people will just be extra reminded that they really do need to stop.”

Currently, stop arms only extend slightly off the bus. Under this proposal, they could stretch out much further, potentially reaching into other lanes of traffic.

“Nothing has changed regarding, you know, making it more prevalent that a school bus is stopped, and a car that needs to stop, it’s coming up from the back of the school bus or the front of the school bus,” Trevor Clatfelter, co-owner of the company BusGate said. “And then when you got distracted drivers growing every day with cell phones and just busy lives, and the amount of cars that are overtaking school buses has been a growing trend. So we came up with a product are one of the other owners, He’s the inventor of the founder of it, who developed this initiative.”

Several years ago, the state passed a bill that was supposed to create a pilot program for extended stop arms. The program never got off the ground. This bill bypasses any pilot program, and changes the rules if the governor signs it.