Is this illegal?

[webny99]

[anecdote snipped] Is it legal to make a turn or any other maneuver from directly behind a stopped school bus, providing you do not pass the bus?

This is a general thread for cases when you are unsure if something is legal or not.

[blue.cable82]

It depends

LGMS210

[1995hoo]

Stuff like that is often state-specific.

[Bitmapped]

My interpretation has always been that you should stop short of the bus. You didn't do that in this case. You didn't even stay on the road.

[kkt]

No idea what your state law says.  Pretty sure in mine you would not be supposed to make the turn until you were sure there was a place to go on the other side that was on the road and not blocking the traffic coming toward you on the main street.

[blue.cable82]

Depends on your state's traffic laws.


LGMS210

[J N Winkler]

I suspect the bus driver had a bad reaction not because the maneuver was illegal, but because in one of the rearview mirrors it might have looked like the back of the bus was about to be clipped.

Legalities aside, I tend to agree it is prudent to hold off on a maneuver until the "landing place" is guaranteed to be clear.  As a matter of good driving practice I also try to avoid using private driveways except as an invited guest.  On the infrequent occasions I have to do driveway turnarounds, I try to back in instead of nosing in, and go no further than the inside line of the sidewalk easement.  This reduces tire scrub and spares the dweller the added provocation of having a stranger look directly at his or her front windows (or, at night, shine headlights through them) while taking advantage of his or her driveway.

[roadfro]

I'd agree with others that said that you should have ensured there was sufficient space for you to clear the intersection before you completed your turn.

One thing that most Nevada school buses do is flash yellow warning lights prior to approaching a bus stop and activating the red lights and stop signs. That way, drivers have idea of a pending stop. That might have given you an indication in this instance and a pause before you made your turn.

[jakeroot]

Shitty situation. I would have done exactly as you did. If you're waiting to turn left at an intersection, it's normal to follow people through the left turn because, unless there's cars coming the other direction, there's no requirement to stop (just "yield"). If every car turning left stopped before turning to ensure there was space on the other side, traffic would quickly back up (as the "yield" becomes a "stop").

I'm not going to argue that you aren't required to ensure that there is adequate space to accommodate your vehicle on the other side of the intersection. But, if you can see beyond the intersection, and it's clear that there will be space because traffic isn't backing up, it's totally normal to just continue turning. If a car were to turn left and then stop, blocking me from exiting the intersection, I'd lay on the horn. Anything but a school bus and this situation wouldn't have happened (and even though it was a school bus, I assume it's rather unusual that a bus would stop immediately after turning -- my local municipality does not allowing parking/stopping within 30 feet of an intersection, except to give way of course).

One thing that most Nevada school buses do is flash yellow warning lights prior to approaching a bus stop and activating the red lights and stop signs. That way, drivers have idea of a pending stop. That might have given you an indication in this instance and a pause before you made your turn.

I think this is a national requirement. All buses in my area do this (although some pull off the road to load, and leave the flashing yellow on while loading, to keep traffic from backing up).

[jeffandnicole]

First off - How close is your friend's driveway to the intersection?  By your description, that driveway would have to be within inches of the main road if you were able to pull into that, but couldn't stay behind the bus.

The bus is supposed to turn on their yellow lights to warn about a bus stop approximately 100 feet or more before the bus stop.  The problem here is that the bus stop is just after the turn onto the side street.  If the bus driver turns on their lights on the main road, motorists coming the other way may slow down and stop in the middle of the road, preventing the bus from completing its turn. 

Also, as others have mentioned, you still need to ensure that you can turn onto the road, so you need to wait.  I'm not sure what 'regular' speed is for a turn, but it's usually pretty slow.

The front of the bus was, obviously, well past my friends driveway, and in any case I knew no one from her house rides a school bus.

What...no one would walk down the sidewalk or street to get to the school bus?  It doesn't matter that no one from the house you were pulling into doesn't ride the bus.

Would you have waited, preventing mainline traffic from getting through?

The problem with this statement is that you fail to understand the other option - not turning first. 

[7/8]

Shitty situation. I would have done exactly as you did. If you're waiting to turn left at an intersection, it's normal to follow people through the left turn because, unless there's cars coming the other direction, there's no requirement to stop (just "yield"). If every car turning left stopped before turning to ensure there was space on the other side, traffic would quickly back up (as the "yield" becomes a "stop").

Good response jakeroot. This sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to happpen, and I would've done the same thing too. Obviously they should move the bus stop farther down.

[kalvado]

Also, as others have mentioned, you still need to ensure that you can turn onto the road, so you need to wait.  I'm not sure what 'regular' speed is for a turn, but it's usually pretty slow.

One of those rules written with good intention when traffic was way lighter than today - and which are meaningless and impossible to follow as written today. KREP and leftovers of NMSL are from the same bucket.
Not for this particular situation - but any major intersection with turn options less than 500 feet downstream (one I have in mind is a left turn from 4-lane arterial with 30k traffic to a 2-lane with 11 k traffic, left turn to retail driveway 100 feet down)  would either come to complete standstill if each of 20 cars passing within 30 second protected left turn phase would wait for a spot downstream - or turns cluster once some ass.. I mean some nice old lady...  tries to make a left turn to pharmacy through cars taking protected right. from 2-lane to arterial.

The front of the bus was, obviously, well past my friends driveway, and in any case I knew no one from her house rides a school bus.

What...no one would walk down the sidewalk or street to get to the school bus?  It doesn't matter that no one from the house you were pulling into doesn't ride the bus.

NYS seems out of control with school buses (and schools in general thanks to extremely strong teacher union) - I heard people complaining about bus literally making 3 stops at 3 homes in a row during rush hour: they don't want students to walk an extra step - not to mention crossing the street or walking extra 50 feet to next driveway. Which is probably a big part of a problem as well, as school buses end up an elephant in the room, easily breaking traffic flow patterns. Even transit buses seem more accommodating..

[DevalDragon]

I can't think of any state that allows you to leave the paved road to pass another vehicle.

[jakeroot]

I can't think of any state that allows you to leave the paved road to pass another vehicle.

Depending on where the property line starts, the area adjacent to the road might have the property of his friend, which would have made driving on the property legal (so long as his friend is cool with it).

However, I don't believe that property lines start immediately after the pavement ends in most states, so more than likely, he drove off the "roadway", which is illegal most everywhere (however common the maneuver may be).

[RobbieL2415]

In my state, your vehicle absolutely cannot be within 10 feet of a school bus that is stopped and discharging/receiving.  Then again, in my state I've also seen drivers stop and not pass a school bus that has its lights off!  And last I check CT's school bus laws don't require motorists to stop for school busses with their lights off even if they are letting kids on/off, though it would be common courtesy (and safer) to stop and not pass in this case.

[Brandon]

I can't think of any state that allows you to leave the paved road to pass another vehicle.

No, but doesn't stop them from doing exactly that around these here parts.

[J N Winkler]

I understand that option (which does, BTW, also back up mainline traffic) perfectly. However, my momentary lack of attentiveness at the time eliminated this option before I even considered it. So, in an ideal world, that works great. But I got myself into a not-so-ideal situation here, so I'm asking what would you have done if you already made the turn? not should I have waited?

Of course I should have waited. But, given that I didn't, what should I do (and was my course of action after the turn acceptable)?

I would say that it was acceptable, though far from ideal, and less likely to attract enforcement attention compared to alternatives I would have considered, such as moving to the left of the bus and waiting at the stop arm (thereby blocking traffic in the left lane until the bus left and you could swing back to the right lane, which is not a huge problem since that traffic also has to stop and wait), or simply breaking the law and slowly creeping past the bus.

I would like to know why the bus was not deploying flashing yellow lights and why the bus stop was this close to an intersection.

[jakeroot]

I can't think of any state that allows you to leave the paved road to pass another vehicle.

No, but doesn't stop them from doing exactly that around these here parts.

I'm not afraid to admit that I've partaken in a bit of off-road driving to overtake turning vehicles. Usually only when there's a long line of cars. My Golf doesn't exactly work well in mud.

[J N Winkler]

We don't have StreetView imagery for this scenario and I, for one, have not asked for it in case ParrDa wishes to protect the privacy of his friend.  Going off the road to pass a stopped vehicle or to avoid overhanging an intersection is practical when the road has open drainage with relatively flat roadside development, but not when there is a barrier curb or a steep ditch slope.

[jakeroot]

Going off the road to pass a stopped vehicle or to avoid overhanging an intersection is practical when the road has open drainage with relatively flat roadside development, but not when there is a barrier curb or a steep ditch slope.

Not an unusual sight in Seattle. I see drivers mount sidewalks (usually just a wheel or two) to "under"take from to time. Far from legal, but seems to be socially acceptable.

[J N Winkler]

Not an unusual sight in Seattle. I see drivers mount sidewalks (usually just a wheel or two) to "under"take from to time. Far from legal, but seems to be socially acceptable.

Curb height and profile matter.  My experience of Seattle (confined, at the neighborhood level, largely to Phinney Ridge and Greenwood where friends of mine used to live) is that curbs, while square, are also quite low.  In most parts of Wichita they have a slight slope but are about twice as high, so trying to drive over them is asking for trouble.  The only curb type in wide use in Wichita that is suitable for driving over is a mountable design with flat slopes, usually not seen except in newer subdivisions, that eliminates the need to provide curb cuts at driveways.

[jakeroot]

Not an unusual sight in Seattle. I see drivers mount sidewalks (usually just a wheel or two) to "under"take from to time. Far from legal, but seems to be socially acceptable.

Curb height and profile matter.  My experience of Seattle (confined, at the neighborhood level, largely to Phinney Ridge and Greenwood where friends of mine used to live) is that curbs, while square, are also quite low.  In most parts of Wichita they have a slight slope but are about twice as high, so trying to drive over them is asking for trouble.  The only curb type in wide use in Wichita that is suitable for driving over is a mountable design with flat slopes, usually not seen except in newer subdivisions, that eliminates the need to provide curb cuts at driveways.

That low curb profile extends to some of the suburbs. Down in Puyallup, most roads have a low curb profile, like in Seattle: https://goo.gl/5JWL87. Newer roads in Seattle use the standard height curbs that I'm sure are MUTCD compliant.

Speaking of curbs, I've noticed that the UK continues to use relatively low curbs (which seem to be utilised quite often by drivers for parking purposes), despite the fact that many other countries have since moved on to taller curbs. I personally think the tall curbs are silly. I don't see why they have to be as tall as they are. Since you live in both the UK and US, would you care to shed some light on this?

[J N Winkler]

That low curb profile extends to some of the suburbs. Down in Puyallup, most roads have a low curb profile, like in Seattle: https://goo.gl/5JWL87. Newer roads in Seattle use the standard height curbs that I'm sure are MUTCD compliant.

I don't know that the MUTCD actually addresses curb height or profile.  In my experience that tends to be dealt with through roadway standard plans issued by state DOTs and cities.  In the US there is a spread of different curb types to accommodate regional preferences.  New England and, it seems, Seattle  prefer curbs that consist of rectangular prisms of cut stone or cast concrete laid down immediately adjacent to the pavement, while most cities in frontier-tier states (like Wichita) prefer concrete curbs that are cast integral with the gutter and laid so that the gutter is flush with the pavement and serves as a margin.  Application is another variable; some curbs are designed to be mountable while others are not.  Curb height is not nationally uniform.

Speaking of curbs, I've noticed that the UK continues to use relatively low curbs (which seem to be utilised quite often by drivers for parking purposes), despite the fact that many other countries have since moved on to taller curbs. I personally think the tall curbs are silly. I don't see why they have to be as tall as they are. Since you live in both the UK and US, would you care to shed some light on this?

Curbs (or, to use the British spelling, kerbs) are a bit of a touchy subject.  There is a spread in curb materials in the UK comparable to that existing in the US, but in general curbs are lower in Britain, and I have never known them to be cast integral with the gutter, though in some cases the gutter is separately paved.  There is also not as sharp a divide between low- and high-speed roads in whether curbs are used.  In the US barrier curbs are not allowed (per AASHTO Green Book) on roads with design speed over 50 mph, which is one reason you can leave a small town in Oklahoma or Arkansas and not have the speed limit go up from 45 or 50 until the curbs finally end in the middle of nowhere and open drainage begins.  In Britain, on the other hand, it is not uncommon for trunk roads to have low mountable curbs (with a flat, splayed profile) in rural areas where the national speed limit is 60 or better.  The closest we come to this is the low asphalt dikes at the back edges of pavement in states like California.

In urban Britain you see a lot of wheels-up parking on the pedestrian pavement simply because the streets are so narrow and congested.  Much of the road system dates from medieval times or earlier, though for reasons of dust suppression a much higher percentage of it is paved than in the US.  And even modern standards are ungenerous with road width.  Design Bulletin 32, which was used for about thirty years to lay out new estates before it was superseded by the Manual of Streets in 2007, allowed estate access roads (basically equivalent to subdivision roads in the US) to be as narrow as 3 m, which is just wide enough to accommodate a furniture van that blocks the entire driveable width and is also about the same width as the sidewalk highways built in 1920's America.

Having White Van Man (as well as panel truck drivers) park with one set of wheels up so that traffic can get through is very much a second-best solution.  The pedestrian pavements are not reinforced to take the weight and eventually they develop bumps and sags that collect water when it rains and threaten to soak your shoes; in some cases the added weight can damage buried utilities.  In fact there is an ongoing attempt to discourage uncontrolled wheels-up parking outside London (it has been banned within London since 1974) and new signs have recently been developed to indicate areas where it is legal to park with the wheels on one or both sides of the car on the pavement.

My personal preference (admittedly largely because it is what I grew up with) is for adequate road width to accommodate traffic in both up and down directions as well as parking entirely within the curb lines where on-street parking is permitted at all.  I also like my curbs fairly high, with rounded lips, just enough slope to be forgiving of tracking errors that would otherwise cause alloy wheels to develop "curb rash," and sag across driveway openings modulated so that even a fairly low-riding vehicle doesn't scrape pavement when it uses a driveway.

[kphoger]

In the US barrier curbs are not allowed (per AASHTO Green Book) on roads with design speed over 50 mph, which is one reason you can leave a small town in Oklahoma or Arkansas and not have the speed limit go up from 45 or 50 until the curbs finally end in the middle of nowhere and open drainage begins.

Unless, of course, that road happens to be an Oklahoma turnpike.

[NWI_Irish96]

First off - How close is your friend's driveway to the intersection?  By your description, that driveway would have to be within inches of the main road if you were able to pull into that, but couldn't stay behind the bus.

The bus is supposed to turn on their yellow lights to warn about a bus stop approximately 100 feet or more before the bus stop.  The problem here is that the bus stop is just after the turn onto the side street.  If the bus driver turns on their lights on the main road, motorists coming the other way may slow down and stop in the middle of the road, preventing the bus from completing its turn. 

Also, as others have mentioned, you still need to ensure that you can turn onto the road, so you need to wait.  I'm not sure what 'regular' speed is for a turn, but it's usually pretty slow.

The front of the bus was, obviously, well past my friends driveway, and in any case I knew no one from her house rides a school bus.

What...no one would walk down the sidewalk or street to get to the school bus?  It doesn't matter that no one from the house you were pulling into doesn't ride the bus.

Would you have waited, preventing mainline traffic from getting through?

The problem with this statement is that you fail to understand the other option - not turning first. 

The problem is that the bus shouldn't be stopping within 100 feet of making a turn.  Bus should go down the street a bit and then stop.  Kids can walk an extra 100 feet to get to the bus stop.