Somehow, summer is coming to an end.

As muddy fields, mosquitos the size of Tic-Tacs, and excellent tomatoes round out this gray, chilly summer that wasn’t, we see some new colors on the road – the yellow and red of turning leaves, and the yellow and red of school buses and their stop signs.

Pine Bush schools began on September 1, and the Ellenville and Rondout Valley districts began on September 8.

This week, in lieu of an editorial admonishing a politician or demanding some truth be unveiled, we want to issue a gentle reminder: Look out for buses and kids, especially in the morning, when a whole bunch of students shorter than the bumper of a truck are waiting for the school bus.

This has been a pretty nutty year on our roads. Last year at about this time, there were three crashes and two fatalities, several miles apart, on Route 209 on Labor Day. Two of them were at the same gas station, a few hours apart. Within five weeks, 209 logged four fatalities. In the wake of that disaster, Hurley and Marbletown both tried, and failed, to lower the speed limit on their stretch of the road.

Around the same time, as fall settled in, everyone from the park rangers to KAFAS took part in a rope rescue on Route 44/55, when a motorcyclist drove off a 20-foot embankment.

Next came, as you might recall, the Time of Potholes, as the snow kept falling and the plows kept working through the long winter, and our roads turned into Swiss cheese.

Nine weeks ago, traffic was blocked on Route 52 atop the ridge because of another serious motorcycle accident, not long after a driver died after hitting a tree on Albany Post Road in Shawangunk. A few weeks ago, a car was T-boned coming out of the Stone Ridge Post Office and burst into flames on Route 209, just as Marbletown was beginning the process of putting together a traffic safety plan for the road. All the while, there’s a small stream of collisions and injuries from people passing, speeding, looking at their phones, or just plain getting unlucky.

As we write this, a guy on a moped just aggressively zipped past a woman trying to make a turn on Canal Street.

Now, once again, into this whole mess step the school buses.

Keep your speed down, keep your phone down, and keep an eye out for buses and kids. We all appreciate it.