![]() ![]() Multiplying the results by a 180-day school year brings the total number of illegal passing to over 600,000 a year. On that day, 3,394 Virginia motorists illegally passed a stopped school bus. A one-day study was conducted in September 1996 in 119 of the 131 school divisions in the State of Virginia.Since approximately 11,150 school buses participated in the survey, this meant an average of almost one illegal passing per school bus that day. On one day in May of that year, 10,590 vehicles illegally passed stopped school buses in 58 of Florida's 67 school districts. The School Transportation Management Section of the Florida Department of Education conducted a study in 1995 through the University of South Florida.What they found was worse than they had imagined. In the mid-1990s several States conducted surveys to determine the actual extent of illegal passing. For years, school bus drivers have been aware of, and have complained about, motorists illegally passing their school buses. While the number of actual crashes caused by this violation is low, the potential for injury or death is high. However, in all cases on divided highways, traffic behind the bus must stop. State law varies in what is required on a divided highway and what constitutes a divided highway. The school bus driver activates flashing red lights and extends the stop arm to indicate the school bus has stopped and students are getting on or off. At this point, motorists should stop. At this point, motorists should slow down and prepare to stop. While wording varies from State to State, generally the law requires the following: The school bus driver activates flashing yellow lights to indicate the school bus is preparing to stop to load or unload students. They might be behind the bus, pull onto the shoulder, and pass the bus on the right.Īll States require the traffic in both directions to stop on undivided highways when students are getting on or off a school bus.They might be behind the bus, pull into the left lane, and go around the bus.They might be coming toward the bus, decide that no students are crossing the road, and just keep going.However, some motorists simply choose to ignore the law. To get a copy of the three-volume report (DOT HS 808 749) describing the methodology, the findings, and suggested countermeasures, contact the National Technical Information Service at or call 70.Įvery one of the 50 States has a law making it illegal to pass a school bus with its red lights flashing and stop-arm extended that is stopped to load or unload students. ![]() Three thousand drivers, ages 16 to over 65, completed the unsafe driving survey. The National Survey of Speeding and Other Unsafe Driving Actions was commissioned by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Passing a stopped school bus was considered to be more dangerous than any other unsafe driving behavior, more dangerous even than racing another driver, driving through a stop sign or red light, crossing railroad tracks with red lights blinking, passing in a no-passing zone, and speeding. Yet, in a 1997 survey on speeding and other unsafe driving behaviors, 99 percent of the drivers interviewed felt that the most dangerous unsafe driving behavior was passing a school bus with its lights flashing and stop arm extended. The act of illegally passing a stopped school bus with red lights flashing is commonly known as a "stop-arm violation." This refers to the stop-sign shaped "arm" that extends from the left side of the bus when the red lights are activated. Motorists want to get where they are going, with little interruption and as quickly as they can. By law, when a school bus stops to drop off or pick up students, motorists must stop too. School buses make frequent stops to load and unload students. In all that time there has been an uneasy coexistence between school buses and motorists. Although yellow wasn't adopted as the school bus color until 1939, school buses have been around since 1915, about as long as the automobile. Both have been part of the morning and afternoon landscape for five generations of school children. The school bus driver looks at the traffic behind her and in front of her and thinks, "Will anyone try to pass?" Seven or eight elementary school students are waiting near the curb. The big yellow school bus approaches the intersection of First and Main. ![]()
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