STOP Does NOT
Mean Proceed with Caution

Bill Paul | Publisher

Illegal passing of school buses has emerged as one of the major problems in school bus safety. Both Dateline / NBC and CNN’s Evening News Show examined the subject earlier this year in national broadcasts. Indeed, recent years have seen numerous studies and state-wide efforts to chronicle the number of pass bys, with commensurate efforts at enforcing laws that prohibits the practice.

School buses are one of four vehicles – fire trucks, ambulances and police cars being the others – that can stop traffic. But unlike those vehicles where motorists must pull over and make way for the emergency vehicle, and are then allowed to proceed with caution once the emergency vehicle has passed, a school bus stop requires the motorist to remain stopped until the school bus pulls away. Some observers in the industry think the procedure sends a mixed message to motorists.

Enforcement and education meet with sporadic success as evidenced by the continued violation of the law. Illegal pass bys continue and school children continue to be hit by motorists who ignore the stop signs that extend out from school buses.

Several years ago Transpec developed and commercialized an LED Driver Alert sign. Measuring about 24 inches wide by 10 inches high, it is affixed to the rear and sometimes front of the bus. It is a companion product to the company’s LED stop arm in which the entire word “STOP” is illuminated in hi-visible bright red flashing LEDs. While the Driver Alert sign introduced a new device to attach to the exterior of the bus, the safety benefit of the device appears clear.

Important to the new sign’s success was the unambiguous message it sends. Brian Weisinger, transportation manager for Spring ISD School District in Spring, Tex., said that he conducted a pilot test on two buses on routes where illegal passings were common. Spring, Tex. is a suburb of Houston. “They made a world of difference, and led to a great reduction (of illegal passings) in at least 95 percent of the motorists.” Weisinger plans to eventually equip his entire fleet of 231 buses with the Driver Alert system.

Here is how it works.

As the driver begins to bring the bus to a stop and flips the switch activating the yellow warning lights, the words “CAUTION” and “STOPPING” alternately flash in amber yellow color LEDs, in time with the yellow eight-way lights.

DO NOT PASS
When the bus finally comes to a halt, the second step of the deployment sequence kicks in. As the passenger door opens, the yellow LEDs switch to red and the Driver Alert sign flashes alternately “STOP” and “DO NOT PASS” in time with the red eight-way lights. The word STOP has the familiar octagonal shape of the traditional stop sign around it created by an LED outline. The action coincides with the crossing control and stop arms which are now extended from the front and side of the bus. Moreover, the word “CAUTION” can flash if the Driver Alert system is incorporated into the back up warning system. Driver Alert can also flash “CAUTION” and “STOPPING” together as the bus approaches railroad crossings.

One of the primary benefits of the Driver Alert CAUTION and STOPPING signage is it allows motorists more time to judge the intentions of the slowing bus, and react to it. At 30 MPH traffic approaching a stopped school bus – to say nothing of one that is still moving forward as it slows – is traveling 44 feet per second; double that at 60 MPH. Stop arms typically take one-to-four seconds to deploy. Often, motorists pass a bus in the time it takes for the stop arm to fully deploy and provide its stop message. Yet the door is already open and children could be stepping off the bus.

Justin Wilczynski, assistant director of transportation for the Clark-Pleasant Community School Corp. in Whiteland, Ind., explained the importance of alerting drivers further away from the slowing school bus.

“When the school buses load and unload students … the glare from the alternately flashing lights actually prevented motorists from reading the word STOP from as little as 30 feet away.” Wilczynski said when he compared a traditional stop arm to the LED Driver Alert sign “the word STOP could be read as far as 80 feet away.”

Moreover, Driver Alert broadcasts an unambiguous message to motorists. “Many drivers believe that flashing red lights simply mean ‘slow down and proceed with caution,’” said Ron Lamparter, president of the company. “They’ve become all too easy to ignore.”

Over the last several years, Transpec has undertaken several studies to determine whether LED Stop Signs and the Driver Alert system do, in fact, aid in preventing illegal pass bys of school buses stopped for loading and unloading.

Test Results
Controlled tests of the LED Stop Signs were conducted in 10 county school districts in four states and two Canadian provinces, and 36 different school bus routes reporting high rates of illegal pass-bys were utilized in the test study. Three different test cycles – utilizing standard stop arms, utilizing LED stop arms, and utilizing strobe stop arms – of 20 days each were conducted on each route.

“In over 80 percent of our tests, pass-bys were reduced by 50 percent or more,” said Lamparter. During these tests, even greater impact was confirmed with Driver Alert, where on some problem routes, pass bys were virtually eliminated.

One driver in Nechacko Lakes, British Columbia observed, “Since putting the Driver Alert signs on the bus, there have been no (motorists) passing through the lights.” Another driver in River East Transcona, Manitoba reported,” I have noticed considerable difference in the number of drive through instances since the installation of the Driver Alert. Besides the numbers being less, I have also noticed that the vehicles are stopping at a greater distance from the rear of the bus.”

Punishment vs. Prevention
These anecdotal comments and the company’s test results about the value of LED lighting raise the question of whether investing more in preventing passbys in the first place with an unambiguous order not to pass, might not be a more productive public policy than the standard law enforcement practice of ticketing individual drivers who pass a stopped school with flashing stop signs and red lights?

With the cost of ticketing in the hundreds and in one case more than a thousand dollars, clearly ticketing bears fruit as numerous examples from around the country and in Canada amply demonstrate. Individual drivers who receive tickets probably learn not to do so any longer and likely become skittish around school buses. That’s well and good, but the question of prevention vs. punishment remains.

Does the policy of ticketing individual violators serve to educate the larger universe of motorists?Bear in mind motorists experience the mixed message of the flashing red lights of the school bus ordering a total stop, while a siren and flashing red lights warn of an approaching emergency vehicle and inform motorists to pull over and stop – albeit temporarily – until the emergency vehicle has passed?

As long as even one school child is killed by a passing motorist, nothing less than full exploration of every conceivable avenue to bring to a full halt the thoughtlessness of passing a school bus engaged in loading or unloading, is acceptable.

Source: School Transportation News, August 2006. All rights reserved.