After watching this video on TLS, police sent the video to the Traffic & Safety division of the Lakewood Police Department to review the footage, Detective Lieutenant William Addison tells TLS. The Traffic & Safety division then called the bus company, and warned them that it was against the law for bus drivers to block the intersection or cross over the yellow lines in the road in an attempt to block off the road while discharging students.
“They were both wrong”, says Detective Lieutenant William Addison. “But if I had to issue a summons, it would be to the bus driver, because we can’t ascertain if the driver of the car saw the flashing lights”, he says. “But drivers have to slow down and observe”.
The video, posted here last week, shows the bus stopped in middle of an intersection of the two way Sunset Road – with its safety indicators deployed – in an effort to block vehicles from passing the school bus.
this the best yesterday i saw a bus fly right by another bus that had its stop sign out and lights flashing
I think the school buses in Brooklyn stop the traffic by going across both lanes (at least that’s what they did in my days , don’t know if they still do it )
just like u and me cant take the law into our own hands so to the bus driver need to learn that!!
I think the (moderated) bus drivers never got proper training.. They are wild out there!!!
(Moderated-Please contact them directly. Thank you for understanding) drivers are crazy!!!
Its safer to block the entire street than just put on flashing red lights and watch with horror as other drivers ignoring and passing and almost killing a child,
the law should require bus drivers to block off the streets when dropping off children that need to cross the street
The problem is also, the buses are stopping on roads that have higher speeds limits. Yesterday, I was driving down Wesr County Line (speed limit is 40mph) and the bus stops to drop off kids. The cars on the other sides were flying by, till one guy noticed and stopped.
It would make more sense (and safer) to drop off at less busier side streets. It not always possible, but it would help out the situation.
I dont know, I get a funny feeling about this. I think bus drivers should be REQUIRED to block intersections and other side of traffic in an effort to control the flow of cars. I see this all the time in brooklyn, the bus driver stops at an angle effectively blocking both ways of traffic, creating a safe path for the children to exit
I can tell you that drivers receive all the proper training but that all goes out the window after the first parent marches up the stairs and demands their child get picked up closer to their home. If the bus driver refuses to change the route to accommodate the parent the parent goes to the Board of Ed who caves to their demands. What you end up with is a private school route that started with 15 stops (that were already closer to students houses then public school students routes) and now you have 30 stops which may result in driving behavior the public frowns on e.g. frequent stops, blocking intersections and speeding because they now have more stops in the same amount of time. Many public school routes are less then 10 stops while private schools are 15 – 30 often starting the year at around 15. Its not because the public schools have less students on a bus, its that they are made to walk farther to get to and from their bus stops just as in every other town around. The town would save a great deal of money on busing if the Board of Ed showed the same backbone to private schools parents in regard to the number of original stops on a route and not adding new stops to accommodate their overprotective concerns (and frankly lazy concerns because they do not want to walk a block or two to wait for their child to get off the bus.) Honestly laziness on the part of the parent and child creates a lot of the problems people complain about. Many stops start off at corners of main roads and side streets and end up being moved so that a driver now has to pull into a development that a 40ft bus has no business going into and wouldn’t if this was Brick or Toms River. A perfect example is Westgate, ALL stops in Westgate should be on Hillside Blvd but the older children are to lazy to walk a block to their house on North Crest and the younger childrens parents are too lazy to come wait for their child. So instead of making 2-3 stops in Westgate a driver may now have 10+ but still have only the time for 2-3. The driver in that video probably had the stop at the east side of Liberty and Sunset and a parent probably complained to the driver that they didn’t want their child crossing Sunset at the crosswalk. So rather than the concerned parent waiting for and crossing their child they probably guilted the driver into moving the stop and now that poor driver is going to receive at worst a ticket at best a warning. Its liabilities like that that led me to quit driving a school bus here and drive for NJ Transit.
The bus situation in Lakewood is crazy. It is poshut a geder of “Shomer P’Syoyim HaShem” that no one has been killed by a bus barreling down some of Lakewood’s narrow streets at 45-50 miles per hour in order to get his/her route in on time. Couple that with the lack of sidewalks and it is a disaster waiting to happen.
I think it should be illegal for busses to drop children off on busy streets. they cause i ridicules amount of traffic. then you would be able to avoid them. when I was younger, the bus driver almost never used his stop sign because he could not drop me off across the street from my house, which was annoying for me, because I had to stay on the bus longer, but nice for all the drivers
if bus co. wouldn’t take on so much then the drivers would not be in such a rush- why do they have to cross the yellow line why cant they go around the block so that door is on the side that the child needs to be.
I don’t think that on a street like County Line or Rt 9, the opposing traffic has to stop as well. First of all, they are not allowed to have kids cross busy streets like that, secondly there is a 4 lane road there, so I really don’t think drivers coming the opposite way have to stop. But I could be wrong.
#11 you are wrong. Everyone must stop for the school bus. Only if the road is a divided highway, with a barrier, do the drivers going in the opposite direction get to keep going, and only after making sure it is safe to proceed.
thanks for setting the record straight. Its amazing that there are drivers like #12 who are completely ignorant of driving laws, such as stopping for a bus even on a 4 lane road. Scary that people like that are on the road.
(N.J.S.A. 39:4-128.1): Stop For School Buses
“A motorist must stop for a school bus with flashing red lights. State law requires motorists to stop at least 25 feet away if he/she is traveling on a TWO-lane road or on a MULTI-lane highway where lanes are only separated by lines or on a privately School Bus maintained road. When traveling on a dual-lane highway, a motorist should slow to 10 mph if on the other side of a safety island or raised Median.”
@6
no its not cuz when u do what the bus driver did u cant see the lights or sign u drive a bus like you would drive a car…put it this way when u drive ur car and u drop ur friend/family member off at there house and there house is on a main street what do u do…u get as close to the curb and u put ur flashers on right… i mean people wont stop for u like a bus but ur warning people that yes something here is going on and people are near by…so u might think blocking off the whole street might make sence but more problems happens like in the video the other driver was unsure and traffic the bus drive might have to make a “K” turn now cuz hes at that angle
continue to block both sides of the roads our children are more important then some law! change the law we need this
@a former lakewood bus driver:
good post!