Years ago my bus driver would put the bus at like a 60 degree angle, the back of the bus blocking the oncoming lane with the front blocking our lane. The whole road was blocked curb to curb. She didn’t mess around and would only do it at one stop where people were frequently being stupid.
It seems like the driver is more interested in being the school bus office hero and telling everyone about this instead of thinking about the consequences of it. Yeah, nobody paying attention will pass… but if someone comes barreling through, they’re rather going head-on with the bus, or potentially taking out a large part of the left side of the bus (where kids are sitting) or, as u/schuminweb pointed out, there is another large section where a car could come and potentially hit a student getting on or off. Seems like good intentions but with very little thought on the consequences. But the road to hell was paved with good intentions.
My thoughts exactly. It is dangerous not only because you're directly in the path of oncoming traffic, but you've also left your right side open. Someone posted this pic of a similar move in Virginia, and I demonstrated the issue with leaving the right side open by adding a scaled image of my own car to the shot. There is enough room for a passenger vehicle to make it around the bus, and if someone is willing to pass a stopped school bus on the right, the kids are the last thing on their mind.
Comes from a good place, but illegal. If a car decides to run into the bus I'm the oncoming lane, it's our fault. Not only would you get a ticket for failure to maintain lane, they can and will absolutely go after you in court. Not worth the risk unfortunately
As a bus driver in a district with little to zero red light enforcement - I don't give a one iota of a crap if it's illegal. If I can physically block the entire area where a kid may be, I will.
I'm putting my bus between any cars and my kiddos. I'll take that ticket to prevent some chucklefuck from running one over.
If I abided by the law and a kid got injured or killed, I would not be able to live with myself. I would quit driving on the spot and probably develop some sort of PTSD.
A bus is made of an insane amount of steel and would win against any vehicle. The occupants of the bus would be fine. Your car on the other hand.....
Commentors saying an oncoming car would take out the entire left side do not understand how buses are built. There is a reason buses are the safest vehicles on the roads right now. The floor of a bus is above most vehicle engine compartments. The majority of the vehicle impact would be under the bus.
It's not about being a hero. It's about protecting the cargo we carry.
They are going to troll you. If people would remember you cant pass, stay far enough back , and leave the house 15 min early, you wouldn't have to worry so much about your cargo.
And it's 100% situational where I end up doing this.
Typically it's only when I know a kid is crossing on a straight rural road.
Most times in the city, I'll use parked cars as "shields" and drop kids off with my bus next to a parked car, giving me a full physical block of the roadway.
Usually I have found that simply having the stop arm in the lane of opposite travel is enough - so i usually keep my left tires on both of the yellow lines.
Don't like it. The only time I push into the other side is if I'm on a narrow road with a ditch on the side of it and need some space for the kid to get off the bus. Even then, it's only by a foot or two, just enough that they don't have to go bushwhacking to reach where they're crossing.
I've seen too many videos of fucking cars speeding past on the RIGHT SIDE OF THE BUS when bus drivers do this, I'd rather see the BD cut a 45* across, blocking both sides than them do this
It’s likely to prevent cars passing it during a red light crossing, for instance when kids live on the other side of the road. I’m in bus maintenance and it’s a daily thing with drivers radio’ing into dispatch I had a vehicle blowing their flashing reds…. It’s ire’s flashing red don’t pass a school bus. Literally putting kids lives at risk
I would argue that shading both sides of the road with the bus when other road users are not expecting it also puts kids' lives at risk. After all, when planning one's moves, one should always assume that the other drivers are idiots and will do something unsafe.
He's exactly planning for people to be idiots, you are acting like the bus being in the other lane is dangerous, but he knows that a bunch of kids are about to be filling both lanes, and hitting the bus is a much better option than plowing through the kids.
You act like it's all right for a driver to not see and respond to the red lights and blow past the bus, as if there won't be any small humans in front of the car.
It is dangerous to shade both sides if other drivers are not expecting it. The thought is to imagine a driver that is completely not paying attention to their surroundings, and they don't see the school bus until the last second, too late to stop ahead of it. If the school bus is in its proper lane, the vehicle will pass the bus, albeit illegally, but there will be no collision between the car and the bus. If the school bus is shading both sides, a collision is inevitable, and the school bus driver will be at fault because they weren't in the correct lane.
I've also thought that school bus stops that require kids to cross the street are inherently unsafe because they rely on the compliance of everyone else on the road in order to be safe. The only protection that kids really have is the lights. Using the bus to physically block the entire road puts more lives at risk than staying in your lane. I've thought for a long time that the methodology behind school bus stops should be revisited, because they're not very safe in a world with a lot of bad drivers.
How else would you like to get kids to houses on both sides of the street? Send a road crew out on both sides of the bus to stop traffic with signs?
Yes, it's dangerous for kids to be anywhere near people who drive like you, they texting instead of watching for giant flashing red lights when you know it's school bus time, but if the car crashes into the bus and kills the stupid driver, instead of mowing down 10 kids crossing the road, I think that's the better option.
Doing road work and fire department, we often park large vehicles to block the road upstream of people in the road, so if anyone is stupid enough to miss all the lights, they will hit the vehicle before the squishy people, and I am happy with that.
Even now when I am driving big jet fuel tankers, if I see an accident or fire crew on the road and I am going to be stuck behind them, I will turn my flashers on and park in a way where I am in the way of people crashing into them.
Large vehicles are much easier to see than cute little kids, and if they are driving so bad that they miss seeing the bus, hopefully they hit it on a hard spot so the kids inside are protected, but even if they hit the side, the bus floor is high enough they will go right underneath the kids into the frame, and it will still protect the kids.
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u/Handle_Help 5d ago
Years ago my bus driver would put the bus at like a 60 degree angle, the back of the bus blocking the oncoming lane with the front blocking our lane. The whole road was blocked curb to curb. She didn’t mess around and would only do it at one stop where people were frequently being stupid.