to think if a school bus has stopped to let children on from the opposite side of the road the traffic should stop and wait until the children are safely on the bus?

[Agincourt]

because I am finding it bloody infuriating.

My child gets picked up for 'road safety issues' by a council run bus scheme. We live in a location where there is no footpaths and it's also on a very bad bend. The bus driver pull to the centre of the road to try and block the traffic going round it, but still people overtake before my child has even crossed the road. Today some idiot drove up the grass verge where we were standing waiting because he hadn't got time to stop and nearly ran us over

If everyone just waited my child could get on the bus within less than a minute and the bus would be on it's way. As it is, everyone has to wait longer and my childs safety is put at risk because people can't be arsed to wait :(

In America there are apparently laws in place so that people do not overtake school buses when they are stationary, not sure if this rule applioes in other countries but I wish they would do something here.

We cannot stand on the opposite side of the road as it's too dangerous and if the bus doesn't pull slightly away from the verge it means he has to climb up onto the verge to get onto the bus (I am not really explaining this very well :o) Dropping off after school isn't a problem as it's on the right side of the road, but no he cannot turn around onto the right side of the road in the morning because of the size of the bus v's the size of the lane. It would take him more than a minute to turn round, which is all it would take for the traffic to stop for my son to cross the road safely onto the bus. I just have issue with people overtaking a school bus when they can see children need to cross the road safely to get onto it. The bend isn't really the issue, but I would expect people to slow down at a bad bend anyway, it's what i do in order to stay in control of my car so I don't vear off up a grass verge

If there are already safety issues with the road then I can not understand why the bus driver is adding to the issues by parking the way he does.
If a car chose to go on the grass verge then I can only imagine that much confusion is being caused. And, you say the council have already pulled him on his parking, so it has been recognised he is causing a problem.

Even if everyone here agrees that car drivers are wrong, bad or whatever, the issue remains. You can't change the fact that the other road users are going to continue to react in possible dangerous ways when confronted with this bus.

The only option if you want your son to be safe is to look at an alternative pick up point.

"You stand on which ever side of the road the bus door opens onto. Bus turns up. DC steps on"

Sounds sensible to me.

Or is that the problem-that you/your child would need to cross the road & that that is too dangerous?

It's not just buses - I live on a residential 20mph road on a route lots of families walk along to the local primary school. Cars are usually only parked on one side of the road as there are no houses on the other side. Every week when the bin lorry comes (at about 8.45am) I see cars mounting the pavement and driving along the pavement, practically scattering children in their wake, just to get past the bin lorry. There aren't cars parked all the way along so if they just waited a minute or two they would be able to get past on the road. It drives me mad!

Ah! We have the solution! You say you have a car? You could drive him to school or drive him to a better pick up point for the bus. Problem solved :)

I am happy to accept I am being unreasonable tbh. It's first thing in the morning and I usually am :)

I still don't think it' safe to overtake school buses though, especially when it's not really necessary

Every week when the bin lorry comes (at about 8.45am)

Having bin lorries in mid rush hour is nuts IMO .

I can't drive him as I have to put another one of my children on transport to go to special school and then take the other one to school in the opposite direction. They can't all go to the same school before anyone suggests that. One goes to lower, one to middle and the other to a special school.

Anyway i will suck it up thanks :o

Christ on a (sensibly ridden) bike, YANBU!

I can only imagine that those who think YABU aren't rural, or are surrounded by wide, straight roads with ample pavements.

wrt confusion, if there was a law stating that it was ilegal to overtake a school bus that was collecting or dropping off (maybe they could have lit signs on them, like taxis do when they're free, to indicate as much), there wouldn't be any confusion. I like to think that I'd have enough commonsense to hold back, but clearly some people need to have this stuff Set Out Clearly For Them.

From a safety aspect he waits until all the traffic has stopped or gone and he is a pretty sensible lad. I think that is the only solution really but it's rather alarming when you try to teach safety to a child and someone veers up the grass verge you are standing on with a huge peice of metal.

YANBU. I teach at a rural secondary where a large amount of children are bussed in. A few years ago a 12-year-old girl was killed in a situation like this. Surely a school bus is a good sign that there are children around?

Sounds like mornings are stressfull for you!

There will be a solution, I'm sure. I only wish that it was that road users didn't ignor school buses etc etc. In an ideal world eh? :)
Maybe have a good think about possible alternatives? Changing times of the other pick up and then driving your son to a pick up point as you drive your other to school. (you son would just be picked up further away in the opposite direction that all)

Good luck. Hopefully you will come up with something before there is an accident (or scream from the stress!)

Those saying it should be illegal to overtake a school bus - what about cases where school children get normal buses do we have to make it illegal to over take them?

A pet peeve of mine is the children from the local secondary school who get off the bus and cross without even looking to ensure its safe to cross.

Btw I think the driver who went on the grass verge was obviously a prat, but overtaking a bus on the road is normal and allowed.

Maybe get yourself a high vis jacket and stand lollipop lady-esque while he crosses. It all sounds a bit complicated and like neither the bus or the other drivers are acting sensibly at times.

I am in north London and the problem here is full sized coaches which bus in and out kids to to private schools. The majority of the parents seem to meet the coaches by car and park in dangerous places blocking roads and causing much anger from other drivers who then do stupid things too.

There are council bus drivers but only for special schools and they drive and stop very sensibly.

Interestingly I only learnt to drive about ten years ago and my driving instructor always taught me that I was never to overtake a parked school bus as you could never be sure children were not going to cross either running towards it from other side of road or getting off it then going round to front of bus to cross over the road. I had assumed that that was somewhere in the Highway Code. I think people who do not live very rurally can't quite picture the kind of road OP is talking about - we have several roads like this near us where standing waiting on the correct side of the road ( with no pavement or verge to stand on) would really be very dangerous so the only safe thing to do is stand on the other side on the verge until bus comes.

Going back to what Whatme said; Cars travel on roads, its what they do. You need to sort it, not them...

Where there are no pavements, pedestrians also travel on the road. The space is even more shared than it is normally and as such, motorists should be aware that they'll need to make concessions.

American school buses have a handy stop sign that swings out from the side of the bus, complete with blinky lights, when the bus is stopping to let off passengers. It is very obvious when it's happening, which doesn't seem to be case with OPs situation.

But i find it hard to identify exactly what qualifies as a school bus in the U.k. There are so many colours, sizes, unmarked vans. American big old yellow buses usually have no trouble being identified.

Exactly, Maryz

Groups of children (of any age), of pissed people, of gormless shoppers/tourists (I come from a tourist city); all are liable to act like utter numpties and therefore as a motorist you drive accordingly.

Anyone who expects to be able to zoom past a school at kicking out time (or indeed overtake a school bus) in as unimpeded a manner as they can anywhere else is a numpty extraordinaire (not to mention a dangerous one).

why doesn't your child wait for the bus on the opposite side of the road, or if this is not possible then you need to walk to a safe location and have the bus pick him up from there.This road blocking business is Not On.

Read the OP properly now.You need to arrange for your DS to be picked up somewhere safer

I'm not sure I'm understanding properly, but then I have only had one coffee so far.

If you can see both ways, why cant you wait until there are no cars that need to stop before you cross?