The full details on stopping for a bus

Gordon Speake is correct, but more should be explained about when a school bus is stopped with the stop sign out and flashing red lights on.

If a street or roadway only has two or three traffic lanes, then traffic in both directions is required to stop because children may cross at the school bus to get to or from their homes. This applies even if the lanes of the opposite direction are separated by a median.

If a roadway has four or more traffic lanes, then only the traffic in the lane that the school bus is in and the lane next to the school bus are required to stop.

On a roadway of four or more lanes, it is illegal for a school bus to pick up or drop off children who would need to cross the roadway to get to or from their homes.

The purpose of traffic stopping in the lane next to the school bus is for safety to prevent the school bus from being hit. Traffic traveling in the opposite direction does not need to stop.

This is basically explained in the Illinois Rules of the Road book, which every driver is to study and know. Drivers who ignore or do not know the laws create hazards which can cause accidents, injuries and deaths. The biggest hazard is when people pass a stopped school bus illegally, as happened recently when three children were killed in Indiana. It is irritating when someone honks their horn when I am stopped for a school bus as legally required on a two-lane street.

Rich Lorimer

Streamwood