Do you reasonably expect opposing drivers to know what to in each of the four scenarios/ road type in that graphic shared here?
This ain’t Europe or Asia, you know…
Yes,
You only have to stop in the first one.
We’ve only got a couple of four lane so can’t really say if the opposing traffic stops or should stop. On a regular two lane rural highway, everyone stops. I kinda think the bus routes try to just avoid those situations though and let kids off where there is a cross walk. Just sayin those little buggers run all over the place whether they are supposed to or not.
It’s quite simple:
If there’s a bus on your side of the road, stop.
If there’s a bus on the other side of the road with one or more lanes between you, keep driving.
There really is no reason to stop 4+ lanes of traffic so kids can get on and off a bus.
Here in Virginia, our School Bus Laws are much the same as they are in most other states, “You do not pass a Stopped School Bus!”
*** You stop for stopped school buses with flashing red lights and an extended stop sign when approaching from any direction.
*** You remain stopped until everyone is clear and the bus moves again.
*** You stop whenever the bus is loading or unloading passengers, even if the lights and stop sign are not activated.
And the state provides this easy to understand graphic…
In the graphic, Display “1” and “2” are pretty straight forward and easy to understand, but Display “3” is open to opinion… What happens if there is a break in the Barrier whether it is paved or not…
In my subdivision, the main drag is a “divided extra-wide road” with a Bicycle Lane, like Display “3” above. However, the divided road sometimes has cross streets and the police give answers as to the requirement to stop out of both sides of their mouth and sometimes they ticket the folks who pass a school bus and sometimes they don’t because they say the road is divided… And when the drivers have been ticketed, sometimes they are found guilty and sometimes they are not…
In the Graphic below, the Yellow School Bus “A” could be taking on or letting off kids… The Blue Vehicle “B” behind the Bus must stop… The Green vehicle “C” must stop… However, this seems to be the nebulous “gray” area, the road is technically a divided highway. But there is a break there to let vehicles turn down the side road and this is where the police “double speak” and the courts go both ways…
I for one, always stop at this type of intersection, but have had vehicles behind me almost run into me, sometimes they pass me in the bike lane, or they just lay on the horn…
I don’t care about those behind me, as a kid I was almost hit by a car on more than one occasion when I ran out into the road without looking and my little brother was not so lucky, when he ran out, he was hit and suffered a broken arm and leg…
I do not want that on my conscience even if I am in the right…
Yeah a friend got hit on his bike by a car in about 8th grade. Never healed right. Was in a cast again in senior high. In his 70s now and they were going to try to fix it to reduce the pain. One leg shorter than the other his whole life. You don’t want to be the driver.
Somewhere around 13 years ago–was a federal ticket (national park) so it was a pain in the rear end.
I believe ( not entirely sure ) I was given a ticket for hitting and destroying a train railroad gate in 2016.
Upon leaving the park where I frequented to relax and observed nature, I was crossing a train track and the flashing lights malfunctioned ( didn’t flash ) and I had the music on so I couldn’t hear the sound of the warning bell that the gate was about to come down, so as I went over the track, I felt something hit my car, and people were waving to me asking me what the hell was I doing.
The police came and i explained to them the flashing light never came on and I couldn’t hear the sound because of my radio.
The police saw I was disabled and wanted to set me free but he spoke to his boss over the phone and his boss said they must write me up for two violations:
- Failure to stop
- An attempt to go under/around the railroad gate
I was given an aggressive 10 points on my driver license. Just one point shy of having my license taken away.
I hired a lawyer on the case and we took matters to the court. The judge made us a deal that he would reduce my points from 10 to 3 by accepting that i ran a stop sign and for me to take defensive driving course.
My lawyer charged $780.
One year later, same thing happened to another driver but unfortunately for him, he was struck by a train. That’s when they decided to investigate the railroad gate lights and install new ones.
There are several movements nation wide to eliminate grade crossings (where tires meet track in English) entirely.
That could take some doing.
Are they going to make those grade crossings bilingual?
At a cost of $3 billion over five years, or roughly $600 million per year. More tax payer money…
Plain English.
You’d be surprised at how many people these days don’t know what “grade level” means in that context.
It’s not like people use it in a sentence everyday, and if you didn’t go to college or in the Rail Transport world/trade/business in anyway, or paving roads, why would you know what it meant, unless you read about it somewhere…
In my neck of the world (where I don’t plan on leaving) we just call it a RxR crossing… lol
Me: On my way into work this morning, I ran over 3 grade levels…
Other person: You ran over 3 students on the way to work this morning???
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This $3 billion bill is going to address 400 RR crossings. Only 211,600 to go.
I know people who are train spotters in their spare time. And besides, grade level crossing is the correct term for where a road and rails meet.
It’s not easy to create an under or over pass on existing rails. Trains require a fairly flat road bed to operate. I know of two local troublesome under passes that would require millions to resolve. On one the track can’t be raised and the road can’t be lowered without creating a lake or swamp. The other on a highway would require re-alignment of about ten miles of road along with the land purchases. For what one might ask? Too much money chasing crazier and crazier projects.
They’re putting in a light rail line near me, replacing the old single line with a double line. Also eliminating several road crossings, requiring the shut down of a major road on my commuting route for 12+ months.
There’s this famous (for getting hit) railroad bridge in Liverpool NY. It’s only 11’9". There are multiple signs. Laser detector that detects vehicles too high. Flashing warning lights…Yet every year some tractor trailer hits the bridge. NY state is now considering raising the bridge at a cost of $20 million. That’s just one bridge, and not very complicated. I can’t imagine some of these other crossings where there is no bridge at all. The cost could easily be 10 times that.
Along with death and taxes being the only guarantees in life, add the following:
- Trucks into too low overpasses
and - Trucks on parkways
I never said it wasn’t the correct term, but it still is not something most people use in conversation…
And my Dad worked for the rail road for a few years (60+ years ago) and never heard him say it either… I still have his lantern for signaling back and forth from one end of the train to the other… Back when a train was not a train until it had a Caboose hooked to it…
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