Please Pass on the Left

Normally, this is not a hard concept. Passing on the left is something you learn in drivers education. It is enforced in the practical part of driving on a highway. It is reviewed on the written test! Again this is a fool proof concept, yet people still insist on passing on the right. I'm even guilty of passing on the right but only when there is an idiot who won't get out of the passing lane and is going painfully slow.

Our most common problem is people passing our stop signs while we are loading or unloading children. When they are caught by the police, they always claim they never saw the big yellow bus or thought they could "beat the bus". Sadly, this means they play chicken with children's lives. We can lecture children all day on the proper way to cross a street, board a bus, and debark from the bus, but the fact of the matter is, children get excited, forget instructions, and often dash out in the road without any regard for their own safety. What appalls me even more is when people insist on passing on the right (door side) of the bus as we are letting children off. Several children have either had close calls, or been struck in their own driveways due to the carelessness of ADULT drivers.

You would think bus drivers understand this concept more than the regular driver. Right? Wrong! This morning, a bus driver came around my bus on school property, coming between my bus and the school bus loop sidewalk on the RIGHT side of my bus. She got within 4 feet of my door, noticed it was open and stopped, but only momentarily. I saw her out of the corner of my eye, and grabbed the middle school child getting off and told her to STOP. After the driver of the other bus determined we were not letting any children off due to her reckless behavior, she continued up past the door. She did not call us over the cb radio to apologize or ask if we were letting children off.

Naturally, I took this incident to the bossman.

Astounded,

The Bus Driver