Red lights on school bus need to be stopped for. It is the safety of the children you are messing with by not stopping. I know it is inconvenience to stop from going to where you are going as fast as you can, but it really is for the safety of the kids. The fines for running past school busses aren’t anything to sneeze at either, it is $1,000 fine and loss of license for 60 days here in PA.
Here are two related stories to this, one where they are doing some great work with an officer on the busses and patrol cars strategically placed to catch red light runners. This seems like a very successful approach in this town for catching these people. (PDF)
Here is the story when running the red lights goes bad. The student that was struck by the passing car and the bus driver whom was pregnant was taken to the hospital in this case. They are all lucky that all are expected to survive. The light runner in this case was a young girl as well, which is scary. (PDF)
Take my advice, stop for school bus red lights. It really doesn’t take that long to let kids off, if you follow me for my entire route. It lasts only 37 minutes with students, but the longest on one road I stay is 6 stops…which that would be like 6 minutes of you being stopped. It really isn’t that much to ask for the safety of kids.