State Law Stop!!!!

OMG! That is so scary. We had a couple of bad accidents with that here. Unfortunately, the drivers were illegal immigrants. They didn't really have drivers' licenses and didn't know the local laws (but still drove!)

You SHOULD shoot such people (with a flipcam). Put it on YouTube with the date, license number and "passing stopped school bus as children are crossing street" as the title. Email the URL to the local police.

Seriously, flipcams are cheap thesedays.

My mom is a bus driver.... she says this happens all the time. It makes her so mad! It makes her especially mad that even when she gets the make and licence plate the police won't do anything about it.


I probably shouldn't share this story but I will. I ran a bus light one time on accident. I was going the other way and the sign was out and flashing and I went right through it. It wasn't on purpose I just didn't even think about it.... it was the day I got my licence. My friend who was riding with me remarked "that was ballsy", I said "what was?" He was like, "oh just running through that bus stop sign, I didn't think you were gonna do it". I looked in my mirror and was shocked.... how did I not even see a whole school bus with flashing lights?? My friend just thought it was funny... I didn't.

Here in California, a driver may make a right turn on a red light AFTER the following:

1. Stop behind the limit line or outside the clearly marked crosswalk.

2. Signal.

3. Yield right of way to vehicles and pedestrians who have the right of way.

More often, a conga line of vehicles blows through the red light at 20 to 30 miles an hour, i.e.: fast enough to maim or kill a pedestrian, keeping any pedestrians who have the WALK or "walking man" signal on the curb.

Wow! You know, I'll admit sometimes, especially when you're running late, and you get behind a school bus that stops 10 times within a half mile, it's annoying as hell.

But I'd never even think about going around the bus! There are kids getting off or on, and they aren't looking b/c it's supposed to be safe! The bus stops traffic so the kids can cross.

What a selfish, thoughtless prick. Let us know if anything comes of it.

That's been a HUGE issue where I live. The school boards are now installing cameras on the outside of each bus to try and combat it.

JoeEkaitis said:

Here in California, a driver may make a right turn on a red light AFTER the following:

1. Stop behind the limit line or outside the clearly marked crosswalk.

2. Signal.

3. Yield right of way to vehicles and pedestrians who have the right of way.

More often, a conga line of vehicles blows through the red light at 20 to 30 miles an hour, i.e.: fast enough to maim or kill a pedestrian, keeping any pedestrians who have the WALK or "walking man" signal on the curb.

Click to expand...

I'd never heard of that before, until I went out to San Diego a couple of years ago. I learned pretty quickly that a WALK signal doesn't always mean what it says.

Man, Victoria, just reading that scared the hell out of me.

Most buses up here pull over if they're on a pick up route so cars can go by them. My aunt got reamed by a bus driver (She's a rural route mailperson) for driving around the bus when it was stopped, lights off, in someones driveway after all the kids got off.

I was hit by a car when I was 8, by someone who drove right on past when the bus had stopped and was flashing lights.

I learned fast about school busses in the US. On a visit there last year I was driving a rental and just getting the hang of driving on the wrong side of the road - sorry, thats the right side in the US. (We drive on the left here.)

Fortunately I had a friend with me or I would have overtaken a school bus without even thinking about it. (We don't have school buses or special stops for school buses here.) I had already put the indicator on and was starting to swing out when she screamed stop stop stop. I got a huge fright and slammed on anchors. She then explained the rule.

They should give out information like that at car rental places at airports. The people at Cleveland airport just handed me the keys and said 'have a nice day'.

will somebody please, please, think of the children?

^sorry, someone had to say it

But omg! What a dirtbag! What part of schoolbus did this moron not understand?!

I hate people. I also hate the jackass that swerved around me to make it to the redlight 2 seconds before I did. I hate all those people.

brainstorm77 said:

That's been a HUGE issue where I live. The school boards are now installing cameras on the outside of each bus to try and combat it.

Click to expand...

this is an awesome idea!

bettielee said:

this is an awesome idea!

Click to expand...

I agree. They have too, nothing else is working.

GailD said:

I learned fast about school busses in the US. On a visit there last year I was driving a rental and just getting the hang of driving on the wrong side of the road - sorry, thats the right side in the US. (We drive on the left here.)

Fortunately I had a friend with me or I would have overtaken a school bus without even thinking about it. (We don't have school buses or special stops for school buses here.) I had already put the indicator on and was starting to swing out when she screamed stop stop stop. I got a huge fright and slammed on anchors. She then explained the rule.

They should give out information like that at car rental places at airports. The people at Cleveland airport just handed me the keys and said 'have a nice day'.

Click to expand...

That's so awful that they don't! There's not really all that much to know; they could use the same pamphlets we get to take the driver's test, for that matter.

Victoria said:

I hope his five minutes were worth the $250 fine he's gonna get

Click to expand...

Surely the police or the courts would require actual evidence (more than the word of another driver) to issue a ticket? And to whom would you issue the ticket? The vehicle owner of record?

If a ticket can be issued based solely on the word of a fellow driver (school bus or otherwise), that sets rather a sticky precedent.

~STS~

Victoria said:

If the bus driver can make a positive ID in court, yes, it is enough. Also, there were several of my kids who are old enough to bear witness as well. Tickets are issued based on witness accounts of other drivers all the time. This is nothing new.

Click to expand...

Ah. So a ticket would NOT be issued without a judge making the decision.

That makes much more sense.

~STS~

bettielee said:

I also hate the jackass that swerved around me to make it to the redlight 2 seconds before I did.

Click to expand...

Hate is too strong a word for me, but yeah, I know where you're coming from on this.

I like the idea of cameras on the outside of the bus to ID the car. As for who was the driver, it matters not. The owner of record bears some responsibility for lending out the car to a nutjob, IMO.

Just looked up on the net: Ontario actually has a form for school bus drivers to fill out, and protocol for other drivers who see it happen that might be useful in other jurisdictions as well. (Lots of useful questions to answer.)

And fight for stronger penalties. $250 is chicken shit. Here's the Ontario penalties:

Failing to Properly Stop for a School Bus with Lights Flashing- Subsection 175 (11) & (12) of the HTA = $490 fine, up to a $2,000 fine. If you are convicted the first time and you are charged and convicted again, expect a hefty fine of anywhere between $1,000.00 and $4,000, an accumulation of an additional six (6) demerit points and in addition, possible incarceration for a period not to exceed six (6) months.

Click to expand...

That's jail time for repeat offenders folks, and I may be wrong, but 6 demerits can mean suspension of your license for a period of time.

ETA: Found this at the bottom of the page after I'd finished this post:

Registered owners of vehicles can be charged if their vehicle illegally passes a school bus that is stopped with its red lights flashing.

Click to expand...

So yeah. Make sure you're not lending your car to a douchebag. You're still responsible. (And that means rental companies can be charged, too, I'd think. So they have a legal duty to explain the rules to foreign drivers.)

Interesting.

So are you saying that in Ontario, a driver who did not commit a crime (in this case, pass a school bus with its lights flashing) can be convicted of that crime nonetheless? Surely there is more to it than that.

How is it a crime to fail to predict the future behavior of a driver to whom you lend or rent a car?

What a terrifying prospect.

~STS~

strictlytopsecret said:

Interesting.

So are you saying that in Ontario, a driver who did not commit a crime (in this case, pass a school bus with its lights flashing) can be convicted of that crime nonetheless? Surely there is more to it than that.

How is it a crime to fail to predict the future behavior of a driver to whom you lend or rent a car?

What a terrifying prospect.

~STS~

Click to expand...

It's about responsibility. I wouldn't lend my car to anyone I didn't know really well, and yeah, if I lent out a piece of machinery that's potentially as lethal as a gun (or more so, given that it can do mass damage), then I do bear some responsibility. If you lend to someone who's not going to own up to what they did while they were driving your car, that leaves you on the hook.

As for rental companies, if you read the contract you sign, you'd end up being dinged for any fines accrued during your rental.

It's rather like the tolls on the one toll highway we have in Ontario. We don't have toll booths--the cameras just take a picture of your license plate, and the owner is billed.

I don't really find it terrifying at all. What I find terrifying is the prospect that someone could potentially get away with murder because the state won't prosecute because the car "might" have been borrowed. Think about it--the whole reason why folks in the States can do this and get away with it is that they know that unless an officer of the law is right there to stop them, positive identification can't be made, and they can't be convicted. All they have to do is say, "I think I loaned my car to so-and-so that day," and they're off the hook.

I don't see this type of thing happen very much at all in Ontario, and I live in an area where a lot of kids take school busses.

Yeshanu said:

What I find terrifying is the prospect that someone could potentially get away with murder because the state won't prosecute because the car "might" have been borrowed.

Click to expand...

I suppose it boils down to this:

Which is of greater value?

Protecting the innocent (risks the guilty going unpunished)
or
Punishing the guilty (risks the innocent being punished)

~STS~

Wow, this reminds me of an incident from when I was a kid. I think I was in kindergarten or first grade. On the bus ride home, there was a stop before mine where a girl got off, and her dad waited there every day to pick her up and walk her home.

Well, one afternoon, just as she's getting off and crossing the street, some jackass who's going way too fast for such a small street drives up the road and gets into the wrong lane to go around the stopped bus. I have no idea what the girl's father's occupation was, but he had very fast reflexes.

He jumped out onto the road and pushed his daughter out of the way just as the car sped by, like something out of a movie.

Both the girl and her father were okay, and the guy in the car didn't even stop. He just drove off. Luckily, the bus driver and father both caught his plate number and reported it to the police, so the guy got what he deserved.