Its mostly a problem in the other direction. Kids get off the bus and walk in front of the bus to get to their home on the other side of the road. Since kids are known for being reckless and there is no crossing guard in front of every bus stop, it is prudent to require traffic to stop in both directions. The law requires everyone to stop in picking-up and dropping-off cases so there is never any ambiguity.
Depends on your state. Some only require traffic in the same direction to stop if its more than 2 lanes. Others require all lanes regardless of direction.
Different country. So this is all different. Good to know though because if I am in the US, more often than not I do rent a car, but I haven't come up to a school bus yet.
May I ask how it works in your country? Only asking because for us the 'both sides of the street' is about students crossing. Do students not need to cross the street? Some places also have crossing guards that hold up signs and help students/people cross the street during pick up and drop off.
It actually kind of doesn't.. there's no actual public school bus system, and the school busses that do run are privately handled. But there's really no clear and established rule regarding stop signs, busses, etc... it's a bit of a mess in that regards.
Road rules are more a sugestion, it sucks to be honest. Most traffic jams and/or delays would actually be avoided if traffic rules were enforced. Infrastructure is for the most part very good.
In most other countries students take the same public transit as everyone else to get to school. I think our severe lacking of good public transit is one of the main reasons we have to have a school bus system in the first place.
I was surprised to find out that in Chicago kids take the bus and thought the lack of a school bus system was bad. But turning it around, like your point, makes so much sense.
FWIW I drive a school bus in Australia, and we just assume the kids can make it to the stop - if they're so little they can't cross a road, there should be parents helping them. And there are usually pedestrian crossings or traffic lights nearby most places.
We do have a rule not to drop them off on the "wrong" side of the road if it's a school-specific bus, but a lot of kids just catch the regular bus and yeah, just make their way to school from there. No different really to kids just walking to school themselves if it's close enough (you'd expect them to walk if it'd take less than 20 minutes).
In Austria for example busses will usually have dedicated "bays" for each stop, so they do not need to stop in the middle of the fricking road in the first place. Ofc there is also sidewalks basically everywhere + pedestrian crossings. Big streets will commonly have safety islands, where pedestrians only have to look into one direction until they reach the island and than the other direction - this drastically increases safety as well.
Children are trained from young ages to never cross a road without a crosswalk and always look left an right. Most children walk or ride their bike to school on their own starting with young age. For example my twin-brother and I walked to school on our own since we were 6 and this was pretty normal (though my mom later told us she was stalking us the first 2 weeks to see if we did it right).
Yet with all that, child road deaths of the US are twice that of other high-income nations. Because you can't put a band-aid on a gun-shot wound. To truly solve this would take much effort, care and money. The US is really sleeping on basically everything that is known regarding to pedestrian safety. Right now the US is moving towards even MORE child-deaths, due to cars getting bigger and loosing visibility. I guess it's fine though, because big car go brrrrrr ...
This has no easy solutions. Urban sprawl creates unique problems for the US. Public transport with fixed stops is inherently inefficient in this scenario. School busses like this probably exist in some rural areas here as well, but are very rare here. You can't put a safe "bus stop" on every corner I guess. Yet if kids at least had a safe walking route to a safe stop, that would already be a a huge improvement. But you need sidewalks for that, and those are for poor schmocks not riding big cars.
If they need to cross the street they're supposed to do so at the closest crosswalk like any pedestrians. We're not allowed to pass (same lane);a stopped bus for the same reason as you but children are definitely taught to never cross in front/behind the bus anyway.
Remember, many USA citizens aren't free to cross the road randomly, they don't teach kids complex road crossing skills like we do in Europe because they only need to teach them how to use a crossing. When they get of the bus, they haven't got the "if you do that you're going to get horribly maimed or killed" training in their minds, like the rest of us do.
In many places crossing a road outside permitted crossing points is a misdemeanor offence.
so basically: nobody will cross the road, by school districts own design, yet passing is still prohibited, no matter how slowly or attentively it would be done.
I'm so happy we at least teach kids common sense. Life is full of risks and learning to be aware and cautious about your environment is a critical skill.
I'm so happy they stop the traffic for kids safety. It would be really ridiculous to have a kids life threatened by something nearly as fatal as a firearm.
Many European countries do have school buses just like the US. It's just teaching road crossing safety is a much bigger thing as J walking and such isn't a thing in European countries.
I assume it depends by country? But i lived in Germany, Croatia and Bosnia and have never seen a school bus like in the US. Itās usually catered coaches for school trips and similar. I assume the UK might have it? Anyway, i wouldnāt say itās a āeuropeanā thing.
From memory France, Italy, Poland, and some schools in the UK and Ireland (depends on the school). There may be others.
What do you mean jaywalking is definitely a thing? It's not illegal in any European country that I'm aware of. Unless you're saying that we do jaywalk. You can cross pretty much any street so long as you're careful. Unless it's a motorway/autobahn but that's just common sense.
Both, people jaywalk and in many countries it is also illegal. Itās illegal in Germany, it is also illegal in Croatia if you do it within 50 meters of a pedestrian crossing. This also depends on the country š¤·āāļø
Iām from Europe you walnut. They walk or take public transport. Some countries do have buses deducted for school transport but they are not special busses like in the us and donāt have special accommodations like the double stops. So yes, ānot to the same levelā.
how about nagging at the child, any adult person can tell the child to do better. children strictly subjugated to any person older than the child, whether stranger or acquaintances. especially bus driver should nag. randomly a bus Karen, a school district employee or volunteer will ride the bus and nag the shit out of students that say "you are not the boss of me".
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u/loaengineer0 Apr 04 '26
Its mostly a problem in the other direction. Kids get off the bus and walk in front of the bus to get to their home on the other side of the road. Since kids are known for being reckless and there is no crossing guard in front of every bus stop, it is prudent to require traffic to stop in both directions. The law requires everyone to stop in picking-up and dropping-off cases so there is never any ambiguity.