School Zone at 7:35 a.m.: Guard, Beacon, and a Stopped Bus
At 7:35 a.m. you are southbound on Route 1 approaching an elementary school in Dededo. Your signal is green, but the yellow beacon on the SCHOOL pentagon sign is flashing and the plaque below it reads 15 MPH WHEN FLASHING. Cars are stacked in the drop-off lane on your right, and one car in your lane ahead has stopped with brake lights on. A crossing guard in a reflective vest steps into the ladder crosswalk holding a STOP paddle out at arm's length. Further ahead, on the opposite side of this undivided two-lane roadway, a school bus has stopped with red lights flashing and its stop arm extended. Your passenger says the green light gives you priority over the guard and that the bus, being on the other side, does not concern you.
1. The crossing guard steps out with the STOP paddle while your light is green. Who controls the intersection, and when may you proceed?
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Stop and stay stopped. The guard's paddle functions as a stop sign for your approach, and a green light does not outrank a person lawfully directing traffic in a crosswalk.
- Stop before the crosswalk, not on it, leaving the ladder markings clear.
- Remain stopped until every child and the guard have cleared your half of the roadway and the paddle is lowered. Children arrive in bunches; a second group often follows the first at a run.
- Do not creep forward to claim your green. Creeping is how guards get hit and how drivers end up blocking the crosswalk when the light changes.
The green light tells you the signal phase, not that the crosswalk is yours. The passenger's rule would put your car in the crossing while a child is still in it.
2. At 7:55 the beacon stops flashing but children are still on the sidewalks and in the drop-off lane. What speed applies now?
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The 15 MPH plaque is conditioned on the flashing beacon, so once the beacon goes dark that specific requirement usually ends - but that is where the analysis starts, not where it ends.
- The basic speed law still applies: you must drive at a speed reasonable for conditions, and a schoolyard full of children at 7:55 a.m. is a condition.
- Check for a separate sign posting school-zone hours; some zones run on a time plaque rather than a beacon.
- If children are present, treat the area as a school zone regardless: 15–20 mph, foot over the brake, eyes sweeping the drop-off lane and the gaps between parked cars.
Accelerating back to 35 the instant the light stops flashing is precisely the behavior the zone exists to prevent.
3. Does the school bus on the opposite side of the undivided road require you to stop? Explain the rule and what you watch for.
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The bus does concern you. On an undivided roadway - no raised median, no physical barrier - you must stop for a school bus displaying flashing red lights and an extended stop arm in both directions. The rule changes only where a divided highway separates the directions; then traffic on the far side of the median does not stop.
What to do:
- Stop well before the bus, not alongside it, and do not pass.
- Watch for children crossing to and from the bus, including ones who cross behind it.
- Wait until the red lights stop flashing and the arm folds in before moving.
Yellow flashing lights are the warning: slow and prepare to stop. The passenger's other-side reasoning is a classic fail point because it assumes a divided road where there is none.