Running School Busses

[Scott5114]

^ Which brings up the question... are European kids less prone to doing dumb things?  And if so, why?  What are they doing right that we aren't?

Does Europe even have many school buses? In dense urban environments, schools are normally within walking distance of a student's home, aren't they?

[Road Hog]

Europe typically has more dedicated space for buses to pull off to the side than the U.S. does, hence the difference. And there is a difference between "buses" and "busses."

[kphoger]

And there is a difference between "buses" and "busses."

Whatever.  They were both commonly used back when 'omnibus' came to be shortened to just 'bus'.  The single-s plural grew in popularity while the double-s one declined, but that's about it.  Same difference, really.

[PColumbus73]

In South Carolina, if you're on a multi-lane road, only traffic going in the same direction as the school bus are required to stop, but in several cases I've witnessed, people in both directions end up stopping. It should be noted in these cases, there was no center turn lane, just a double solid line.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=783342372472131

The state MUTCD supplement has signs (Page 88 & 89) that read STOPPED FOR STOPPED SCHOOL BUS SAME/ANY DIRECTION. Not sure if those signs are a good idea, since someone might only see one of those signs and assume that's the law for all school buses.


https://scdot.org/business/pdf/accessMgt/trafficEngineering/supplement_mutcd_rev_02-24-2023.pdf

[RobbieL2415]

The state MUTCD supplement has signs (Page 88 & 89) that read STOPPED FOR STOPPED SCHOOL BUS SAME/ANY DIRECTION. Not sure if those signs are a good idea, since someone might only see one of those signs and assume that's the law for all school buses.

The only state in the union where this is always true, is New York.

[kphoger]

In South Carolina, if you're on a multi-lane road, only traffic going in the same direction as the school bus are required to stop, but in several cases I've witnessed, people in both directions end up stopping. It should be noted in these cases, there was no center turn lane, just a double solid line.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=783342372472131

The state MUTCD supplement has signs (Page 88 & 89) that read STOPPED FOR STOPPED SCHOOL BUS SAME/ANY DIRECTION. Not sure if those signs are a good idea, since someone might only see one of those signs and assume that's the law for all school buses.

https://scdot.org/business/pdf/accessMgt/trafficEngineering/supplement_mutcd_rev_02-24-2023.pdf

In case anyone is curious, here is the actual law.  As you stated, you're not required to stop if the road has at least two lanes per direction, even if it's undivided.

Title 56 — Motor Vehicles
Chapter 5 — Uniform Act Regulating Traffic on Highways
Article 21 — Required Stops

§ 56-5-2770 — Signals and markings on school buses; meeting, overtaking and passing school bus; loading passengers along multi-lane highways.

(A) The driver of a vehicle meeting or overtaking from either direction a school bus stopped on a highway or private road must stop before reaching the bus where there are in operation on the bus flashing red lights specified in State Department of Education Regulations and Specifications Pertaining to School Buses, and the driver must not proceed until the bus resumes motion or the flashing red lights are no longer actuated.

(B) The driver of a vehicle need not stop upon meeting a stopped school bus when traveling in the opposite direction on a multi-lane highway or multi-lane private road.

(G) For the purposes of this section a multi-lane highway or multi-lane private road is a highway or private road that consists of four or more traffic lanes, having at least two traffic lanes traveling in each direction.

[SP Cook]

I have no problem with stopping for the school bus.  Kids live on both sides of the road, so everyone would have to cross the road in front of traffic either going or coming.  Making people stop on a divided highway the kid isn't crossing is dumb.

My gripes about school traffic are twofold.

- The typical school in my area, maybe 90% of schools, is a building set very far back from the road, with a long driveway for the buses to line up and a large parking lot, with at least the playground, if not the entire lot, fenced in.  There are no sidewalks and NO CHILD walks to school.  None, zero, not "just a handful", none.  Yet the SL is 15 MPH, and 100% there is a random tax agent there, every day.  There literally is no interaction possible between a child on foot and a car and no reason the standard SL for the area to be maintained.  If anything the cops could stop traffic to let the buses out on the road, but of course, there is no money in that.

- Kids refuse to ride the bus.  I get it, I do.  But there will be a line of maybe 50 or even at one school I know 100 cars just stopped on the road, blocking traffic for 40 or 50 minutes.  In the full view of the abovesaid cop.  I was out of town and saw this school and there was a sign "Do Not Block Traffic - $250 fine" with a citation to a city code under it.  Never knew there was such a thing, but I want one.

[jakeroot]

In South Carolina, if you're on a multi-lane road, only traffic going in the same direction as the school bus are required to stop, but in several cases I've witnessed, people in both directions end up stopping. It should be noted in these cases, there was no center turn lane, just a double solid line.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=783342372472131

The state MUTCD supplement has signs (Page 88 & 89) that read STOPPED FOR STOPPED SCHOOL BUS SAME/ANY DIRECTION. Not sure if those signs are a good idea, since someone might only see one of those signs and assume that's the law for all school buses.

https://scdot.org/business/pdf/accessMgt/trafficEngineering/supplement_mutcd_rev_02-24-2023.pdf

In case anyone is curious, here is the actual law.  As you stated, you're not required to stop if the road has at least two lanes per direction, even if it's undivided.

Title 56 — Motor Vehicles
Chapter 5 — Uniform Act Regulating Traffic on Highways
Article 21 — Required Stops

§ 56-5-2770 — Signals and markings on school buses; meeting, overtaking and passing school bus; loading passengers along multi-lane highways.

(A) The driver of a vehicle meeting or overtaking from either direction a school bus stopped on a highway or private road must stop before reaching the bus where there are in operation on the bus flashing red lights specified in State Department of Education Regulations and Specifications Pertaining to School Buses, and the driver must not proceed until the bus resumes motion or the flashing red lights are no longer actuated.

(B) The driver of a vehicle need not stop upon meeting a stopped school bus when traveling in the opposite direction on a multi-lane highway or multi-lane private road.

(G) For the purposes of this section a multi-lane highway or multi-lane private road is a highway or private road that consists of four or more traffic lanes, having at least two traffic lanes traveling in each direction.

Child's play compared to Washington State's law:

Overtaking or meeting school bus, exceptions—Duties of bus driver—Penalty—Safety cameras.

(2) The driver of a vehicle upon a highway divided into separate roadways as provided in RCW 46.61.150 need not stop upon meeting a school bus which is proceeding in the opposite direction and is stopped for the purpose of receiving or discharging school children.

(3) The driver of a vehicle upon a highway with three or more marked traffic lanes need not stop upon meeting a school bus which is proceeding in the opposite direction and is stopped for the purpose of receiving or discharging school children.

(4) The driver of a school bus shall actuate the visual signals required by RCW 46.37.190 only when such bus is stopped on the roadway for the purpose of receiving or discharging school children.

(5) The driver of a school bus may stop completely off the roadway for the purpose of receiving or discharging school children only when the school children do not have to cross the roadway. The school bus driver shall actuate the hazard warning lamps as defined in RCW 46.37.215 before loading or unloading school children at such stops.

https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=46.61.370

Basically, any road with a two-way center lane does not require stopping. Heck, a three lane road with two lanes going towards a stopped bus wouldn't require stopping.

This law stems from rules which do not allow children to cross more than one lane of traffic. So the law was made that only roads with two lanes of traffic have to completely stop.

[Scott5114]

- Kids refuse to ride the bus.  I get it, I do.  But there will be a line of maybe 50 or even at one school I know 100 cars just stopped on the road, blocking traffic for 40 or 50 minutes.  In the full view of the abovesaid cop.  I was out of town and saw this school and there was a sign "Do Not Block Traffic - $250 fine" with a citation to a city code under it.  Never knew there was such a thing, but I want one.

Riding the bus was a generally unpleasant endeavor for me, living in a geographically large, rural school district. For one thing, the bus routes were so long it took about an hour and a half to get home while the bus wound up and down all of the gravel section line roads and dead-end backroads that kids lived on. This didn't matter much when I was in elementary school, but in middle and high school I ended up not having time to do homework because I wasted all of it on the bus. When I got home, I was usually nauseous from all of the bumping and bouncing up and down the poorly-maintained roads (which also made it so I couldn't do homework on the bus, since it would come out illegible). So, yes, at a certain point I refused to ride the bus anymore.

That being said, parking laws should be enforced on streets in front of schools at pickup time. I live on the same street as a middle school and seeing entitled parents doing basically whatever because they Have A Kid is pretty infuriating. I'm sorry, Darlene, but just because you're a mom doesn't mean you get to run stop signs and park in bike lanes. At the school I went to, the parent-pickup area was a parking lot big enough to accommodate everyone. All schools should provide one of these, rather than just waiving the rules of the road for an hour a day.

[webny99]

I believe most school districts in NY build bus routes so that kids don't have to do something as dangerous as crossing the road.

Ridiculous.  The only year of school I took the bus was kindergarten, but I had to cross a street just to get to the bus stop.  (From first grade on, I rode my bike to school, which—shocker!—involved crossing several streets.)  How do these kids go to their friends' house to play in the summer?  Get a police escort?

Just seeing this now for some reason...

I do occasionally see kids crossing the street to get on the bus in a residential neighborhood, but rarely/never on a main road (defining main road as having yellow stripes down the middle). Shared bus stops in residential neighborhoods are also common, where the kids are waiting on the appropriate side of the road when the bus arrives, but it's safe to assume some of them crossed the road at some point before the bus arrived.