Bus stop violations are out of hand

Oct 24, 2023

‘STOP’ IS NOT A SUGGESTION: Goldendale School District Transportation Director Clay West behind the wheel of one of the district’s school buses.

Goldendale School District Transportation Director Clay West is concerned about the number of violations of law he’s seeing. It’s against the law to drive past a school bus that has its stop sign paddle out when picking up or dropping off kids. West’s fleet of buses is equipped with the latest technology to help keep kids safe, but that’s not stopping West from making sure people are aware of the importance of driving responsibly when young people are entering and exiting school buses.

Washinton State law RCW 46.61.370 states, “The driver of a vehicle upon overtaking or meeting from either direction any school bus which has stopped on the roadway for the purpose of receiving or discharging any school children shall stop the vehicle before reaching such school bus when there is in operation on said school bus a visual signal as specified in RCW 46.37.190 and said driver shall not proceed until such school bus resumes motion or the visual signals are no longer activated.”

This means that when a school bus stops to pick up or drop off a kid and they’ve swung out the stop sign, a driver going the same direction of the school bus must stop until the stop sign is retracted—and on a two-lane road, cars going in both directions need to stop. West said that school bus drivers see this law violated more within city limits. One of the worst spots is on N. Columbus Ave heading towards the Goldendale Golf Club where there are six school bus stops.

“Mostly in the mornings we have a lot of problems,” says West. “That’s an area where for some reason people don’t stop.” People coming into town on N. Columbus pick up speed going downhill and don’t start to slow down until they pass the trailer park on the east side of the road. West says everyone has their own excuse. “They’re either late for work, or they’ve got all these things going on, and they just drive right on by.”

The school buses used by the Goldendale School District are equipped with modern safety technology. They have flashing LED lights to signal slowing and stopping and a long bar that swings out in front of the bus so children do not cross too closely to the vehicle, which helps ensure the bus driver has a view of the children outside the bus at all times and can monitor their safety. There are also cameras mounted on the bus, including one close to the stop sign that swings out when the bus is stopped to pick up and drop off kids. If bus drivers witness someone driving past the stop sign when it is out, they can record the time this happened and submit the camera footage to the police so they can ticket the offending vehicle. This technology has helped to hold drivers accountable.

“The problem before, when we didn’t have the cameras, it was almost impossible for a [school bus] driver to get a description of the vehicle and the license plate number,” West recalls. “We would always get partial plates, and the police could never find the vehicle or run it with a partial number; they have to have the whole number.” West guesses the Goldendale School District sees 20 to 25 of these kinds of violations each year. The ticket for this comes with a heavy fine, and there is no leniency given for breaking this law.

“We’ve had school board members’ kids get tickets. We had a PUD employee who got one,” West points out. “As far as I’m concerned, in order for the program to have integrity, it is what it is. If my mom does it, she’s getting a ticket. Because if you’re not fair across the board, then it doesn’t have integrity, and the program’s no good.”

There is no “gotcha” element to this kind of traffic violation—there is plenty of warning. The school bus drivers use their blinking lights to advise drivers they are coming to a stop. Then the bus driver checks to make sure there isn’t a car already driving by when they swing out the stop sign. They’re not trying to surprise drivers with the stop sign. If the stop sign is put out too closely to the time a car is driving by, then the police may not be able to ticket the vehicle because it must be clear that the driver had enough time to see the sign swing out and come to a stop.

“A lot of times if it’s questionable, they’ll take it to the prosecuting attorney, and they’ll have him watch the video and let him decide,” says West. If it’s not cut and dry, they’ll issue a warning. When it’s clear someone has ignored the stop sign, that is a violation of the law, and those clear violations are what West and the other bus drivers are seeing too much of in the Goldendale School District.

“I would say, for a community this size, we shouldn’t have as many stop paddle violations as we have,” West states. “And that’s not my opinion; that’s our whole group as a consensus. We’re actually surprised in a community this small that we have this many stop paddle violations. We shouldn’t have that many.”

Over on the west side, White Salmon Valley School District Transportation Director Brent Gimlin says they experience much fewer of these kinds of violations. “We don’t see very many, but of course we have like one or two a year,” Gimlin says. He adds the addition of cameras close to the stop paddles, along with the public’s knowledge of these cameras, helped reduce the number of violations.

“When we started putting these cameras on our buses, they did an article on it in the local paper and it seemed to significantly reduce after that went out,” said Gimlin.

Perhaps with more awareness, Goldendale will see a similar decrease in traffic violations around school buses and an increase in child safety.