School bus stop arm cam up close and personal

 

I was driving down a somewhat narrow road, and a school bus was coming the other direction, no lights. The school bus could have yielded to let me by first, but I suppose as a course of habit, it basically kept going forward until we were head to head. Silly when one looks at the video.

I decided I would reverse and yield, which was somewhat irritating but I felt the law was not with me to do anything else.

This happened to be in Lower Merion, where all buses are equipped with stop arm cams.

I basically had to reverse until there was another car behind me, more than half a block.

The school bus stopped so that I was along side of it, my rear bumper leaving 1/3 of the front of the bus, and the arm came out.

I remained in my place for well over 3 minutes as the bus was stopped.

I have front and rear dash cam video which I pulled. Lucky--if the bus had stopped sooner, the stop arm would be out of the video.

I feel I should not be ticketed in such a scenario, that if so, then every parked car should get a ticket whenever the bus stops.

Secondly, what would have happened if I pulled away as the arm came out or was out, who knows? Technically, one could say, it's not safe to do so.

Again I feel that staying put was the right thing to do, and there's simply nothing to be gained by challenging a school bus--they possess all the power and the law is with them. Not to mention we all have kids and would never want any incident to happen. But let's be honest, school bus drivers could act with more courtesy. Perhaps have better training.

Yep, first world problems lol

Not all school bus drivers

Not all school bus drivers are saints. I was on driving in southwest Philly years ago and going thru a school zone, 15 MPH in PA for the entire state, I was going 15 to 20 mph and had a City of Philadelphia school bus pass me on the shoulder of the road.

Another time on I-95, speed limit 55 mph, I was doing around 60mph and had a school bus, loaded with kids, pass me like I was parked.

Another time in Darby Borough I watched one of those smaller yellow school busses, no kids on, go around the railroad crossing arms 20 seconds before a train coming thru, I could go on.

I called the various districts to complain, no idea if anything ever came of the complaints.

It's not right that on busses without the arm cams their word is good enough to have a cop write you a ticket if they say you passed them when stopped with flashing lights on.

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. 2 Garmin DriveSmart 61 LMT-S, Nuvi 2689, 2 Nuvi 2460, Uniden R3 radar detector with GPS built in, includes RLC info. Uconnect 430N Garmin based, built into my Jeep. .