I read in the paper that Franklin State Police will conduct bus safety patrols as part of "Operation Safe Stop". They are trying to target people who improperly pass school buses and are otherwise just practicing bad safety regarding school buses.
I would like to think that I am a most courteous driver. There has hardly ever been a time when I didn't yield to other people in cars or on foot when I get a chance to be polite.
There is a particular bus though, that happens to go across an intersection that I go through on my way home from work. It is a four way intersection where the traffic going UP the hill does not have to stop. Most of the traffic is making a right hand turn at that intersection.
Well, here comes the school bus appraoching the stop sign from the left hand side of the intersection. It has to stop at the sign and let off about twenty kids. There is a crossing guard there who comes into the middle of the intersection to stop the traffic for the kids (just fine and dandy).
Well, then after the school bus has closed it doors, you would assume the crossing guard would move out of the intersection so that the traffic coming up the hill can make their right hand turns and be about their merry way(you would think). But, to my intense dismay, what actually happens is that the crossing guard stands in the middle of the street and lets the bus continue through the intersection!!!!!
This means that all of the fifteen cars waiting to make their turn and go on their way now have to wait until the bus goes through the intersection in the same direction they are going and we all (all fifteen cars) have to stop fifteen more times while the bus stops and puts their red light on and lets off one more kid at a time for about two miles!!!
Now, what in the heck in the sense in that? We (the right turners) would not impede the bus' progress if it proceeded through the intersection after us (oh no!) So what in the heck is up with that? I think that bus drivers need to be made to respect other drivers, not just everyone move out of their way and they drive however they want! Also, they are sitting at a stop sign...and we have no stop sign! What gives that crossing guard the right to allow them through the intersection ahead of everyone else?
It wouldn't be such a big deal, but there is absolutely no way around this bus after you are behind it. Then we are all late picking up our kids from school or just have to otherwise suffer through a needless extra ten minutes just because of a RUDE bus driver and crossing guard. Where are the police that govern that kind of thing?
I am NOT trying to say we need to pay less attention to the safety of our children and school buses in general. But how about some common courtesy! For anyone curious enough to wonder if I am talking about the intersection of Harriot Avenue and Bissell...yep that's the ticket!
