PARKER — Amanda from Parker writes, “What’s driving you crazy? I need to know if I’m in the wrong on this. When a school bus has the stop sign out you stop whether you’re behind it or going towards it from the other side right? There was a bus stop this morning on Twenty Mile Road between Target and the apartments, but it was going the opposite direction from me. I stopped because the sign was out. People saw the bus and were going around me! I really need to know should I have kept going? Is it different if it’s a main road versus a residential area? I swear I was taught you always stop when that sign is out but wondering if I’m a dummy?”
Let me start by saying drivers who blow past a school bus when kids are getting on or off should maybe lose their license. Almost no recent video shows the danger more than one from North Carolina’s Iredell-Statesville Schools. Dash cam video from the bus shows a driver blowing past the stop arm of the school bus on the left and nearly running over two students. I talk more about how big of a problem this is later in the story. However, the blanket assumption that you have to stop any time you see a school bus stop with their red lights flashing isn’t accurate. The rules for when you stop for a school bus and when you don’t depend on the type of road. Even if you aren’t required by law to stop, any bus driver will tell you to make sure you look for kids anyway as they might be crossing the street.
The lights you first see come on a school bus are the yellow warning lights. They are illuminated when a school bus is about to stop and pick up or drop off kids. The yellow warning lights will stay on until the bus driver opens the door. That’s when the red stop lights and the stop arm on the side of the bus activate. That is when you, as a driver, should come to a full stop. You are required to stop at least 20 feet back from the bus and remain stopped until the bus driver deactivates the stop signal. You also shouldn’t turn left in front of a bus if it stops just before an intersection in case kids might be running to cross the street, assuming all traffic is stopped.
Those rules apply on any residential or two-lane road whether there is or isn’t lane-separating lines. The rules are the same for a four or six-lane road with traffic traveling either direction, separated only by a double-yellow line. Think University Boulevard south of Cherry Creek. The traffic on both the bus side of the double-yellow line and the traffic going the opposite direction must stop. The "all vehicles must stop" rule also applies to one-way roads like Broadway or Lincoln Street.
The only time opposing traffic doesn’t have to stop for a bus on the other side of the road is when there is a division of the two directions by “a depressed, raised, or painted median or other intervening space serving as a clearly indicated dividing section or island.” Think Chambers Boulevard in Aurora with a solid, raised median or 92nd Ave. in Federal Heights with a painted, turn-lane median area separating the two sides of the road.
MORE: Read more traffic issues driving people crazy
Specifically in your situation, on that section of Twenty Mile Road in Parker between the Target and the Watermark Apartment complex, since there is a raised median between the northbound and southbound sides, when the bus stopped on the other side of the road from you with its red lights flashing, you didn’t need to stop. You should have kept going. The other drivers might have known the rule so they went around you. However, every driver should be alert that there are children in the area and could be crossing the road.
I talked to Susan Miller, Colorado Department of Education School Transportation Unit Transportation Supervisor about the problem of drivers passing stopped school buses. Susan drove a school bus for 16 years in northern Michigan. She said over her 40 years in the school transportation industry, illegal passing has always been a problem.
“Every single day someone illegally passes a school bus on the left. As a driver, you are scared. Your heart is in your throat. But mostly you are seriously angry that someone would do that. People are in a hurry, distracted, etc., and just simply not paying attention if they are missing a massive yellow vehicle with red lights flashing in their lane of traffic. Hard to understand, isn’t it?”
Miller said most Colorado school districts have school buses make right-hand stops, so students don’t have to cross the road. However, she said, bus operators still see other drivers, even semi-trucks, pass buses on the right side when the red lights are flashing.
In January at the National School Transportation Association meeting in San Diego, industry leaders called illegally passing school buses an epidemic.
Last year, the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services conducted a nationwide survey with bus drivers about the problem of illegally passing a school bus. In Colorado, on April 19, 2022, 648 bus operators counted a total of 274 drivers who illegally passed them. That was just on one day. The survey also showed a total of 51,593 incidents of drivers illegally passing buses across 34 states on a single day during the 2021-22 school year. The sample results point to more than 41.8 million violations per school year across the country.
The fines for passing a school bus when the lights are flashing can be steep, but they pale in comparison with the obvious danger of running over a child getting on or off the bus. The violation is a Class 2 misdemeanor traffic offense. The charge is elevated to a Class 1 misdemeanor traffic offense for any driver who has already been convicted of running the red on a school bus within the previous five years.
Under Colorado law, drivers convicted of a Class 1 misdemeanor traffic offense are subject to a minimum sentence of ten days in jail or a $300 fine, or both, and a maximum sentence of one year in jail or a $1,000 fine, or both. Persons convicted of a Class 2 misdemeanor traffic offense are subject to a minimum sentence of ten days in jail or a $150 fine, or both, and a maximum sentence of 90 days in jail or a $300 fine, or both. Persons convicted of Class 1 or Class 2 misdemeanor traffic offenses must also pay restitution and may be sentenced to community service.
I attached a helpful graphic to this story that helps illustrate when you do and when you don’t need to stop for a school bus and another showing what the lights on the school bus mean.
Denver7 traffic anchor Jayson Luber says he has been covering Denver-metro traffic since Ben-Hur was driving a chariot. (We believe the actual number is over 25 years.) He's obsessed with letting viewers know what's happening on their drive and the best way to avoid the problems that spring up. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram or listen to his Driving You Crazy podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, Spotify or Podbean.
