New (to me) commuting situation…passing a school bus

[TwoWheelsDC]

Today I took a different route than normal, so I could ride the road bike and do some extra hills before work. Anyway, the route took me up Lorcom/Military and while climbing one of the many hills, I came up to a school bus with the flashers on and stop sign out. Of course this meant that traffic had to stop, but the bike lane was wide open. Since I’m pretty sure that in this case, a cyclist is obligated to stop, I was fully prepared to do so, but I slow-rolled it enough that by the time I got toward the front of the line of cars, the bus had done its thing and had turned off the lights. But it got me thinking about how to handle such a situation in the future. Again, I imagine the letter of the law would say that a cyclist needs to stop, but is it really necessary from an etiquette-type point of view? In my case, it would’ve been a slow pass because of the hill, the kids were crossing from the left, and and I would’ve been able to give the bus a wide berth (lots of room due to the bike lane and the unoccupied parking lane). I certainly don’t have a problem stopping for a school bus and probably would do it if confronted with the situation again, just to be safe, but I thought it demonstrated that funny grey area cyclists occupy.

It was right about here…

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=22102&hl=en&ll=38.912048,-77.114056&spn=0.003573,0.016512&sll=38.785393,-76.22332&sspn=0.063292,0.132093&t=h&gl=us&hnear=McLean,+Virginia+22102&z=17&layer=c&cbll=38.912049,-77.114054&panoid=vEW4FgFvQ9XYekv0ShKTwA&cbp=11,328.72,,0,17.43

edit: maybe this needs to go into commuting, but I think it’s a situation cyclists can run into any time…it just happened to be on my commute.

Topic

[Vicegrip]

IMO Drop the idea that the likelyhood of hitting a kid is low. The fear parents feel is not low and the visability we cyclests have in this situation is high. Kids are little nutjobs with limited situational awareness. We parents know this. You know this. If you can conjure a work around great if not chill a bit as we road riding cyclests ask cars to do at times.

The thing to do is push for NG powered bus fleets with top mounted exhaust pipes so we can draft the big wind blocking yellow bricks rather than choke on 30 year old deisel motor exhaust.

[mstone]

@Vicegrip 97669 wrote:

IMO Drop the idea that the likelyhood of hitting a kid is low. The fear parents feel is not low and the visability we cyclests have in this situation is high. Kids are little nutjobs with limited situational awareness. We parents know this. You know this. If you can conjure a work around great if not chill a bit as we road riding cyclests ask cars to do at times.

I have kids, so I’m just as qualified to have an opinion as any other parent. I also have first hand experience that suggests that pandering to irrational parents is not sound policy. If parents actually cared about the safety of children, they wouldn’t drive like maniacs in the kiss & ride and routinely hit kids at the school. The “work around” you mention is to SLOW DOWN AND EXERCISE INCREASED CAUTION WHEN PEDESTRESTRIANS ARE PRESENT OR LIKELY TO BE PRESENT. The neat thing is, that work around is useful at all times, whether you’re on a bike, in a car, near a stopped school bus, near a stopped metro bus, at a crosswalk, on a MUP, etc.

[Greenbelt]

@Vicegrip 97669 wrote:

The thing to do is push for NG powered bus fleets with top mounted exhaust pipes so we can draft the big wind blocking yellow bricks rather than choke on 30 year old deisel motor exhaust.

Praise LOB — this can’t happen fast enough. Even better, all electric.

[Vicegrip]

@mstone 97672 wrote:

I have kids, so I’m just as qualified to have an opinion as any other parent. I also have first hand experience that suggests that pandering to irrational parents is not sound policy. If parents actually cared about the safety of children, they wouldn’t drive like maniacs in the kiss & ride and routinely hit kids at the school. The “work around” you mention is to SLOW DOWN AND EXERCISE INCREASED CAUTION WHEN PEDESTRESTRIANS ARE PRESENT OR LIKELY TO BE PRESENT. The neat thing is, that work around is useful at all times, whether you’re on a bike, in a car, near a stopped school bus, near a stopped metro bus, at a crosswalk, on a MUP, etc.

Pointing out other bad behavior is immaterial to the issue at hand. I ride. I have kids. I end up in front of and or behind yellow busses every am on the way to work. None of that makes me any more or less an expert on this issue than you. I like to use the KISS method when appropriate How my actions as a cyclist are interpreted by others reflects on us all Matters not if the parents are irrational (they are) my few seconds lost or not is the small price to pay. I am not going to get ticked off while soft pedaling or putting a foot down while a herd of kids piles into or out of a bus. They are all different and the same in that they are someone’s kid.

You have to be irrational to want to have kids in the first place. They eat our food burp fart and run off to play. They cost us money time and adult time with a SO. They ask for something for weeks and then only play with it for hours. They weave themselves so deeply into our hearts that seeing some guy or gal on a bike stop along with the cars means something. Does not make sense for sure.

This same conversation could be about drivers slowing for bikes

[Author]

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