A Long Trailer, a Bike Lane, and a Stopped School Bus
At 7:45 a.m. you are eastbound on a five-lane street: two lanes each way separated only by a center lane with solid yellow lines outside and broken yellow lines inside. Ahead, a 70-foot tractor-trailer has its right signal on for a tight corner where a marked bike lane runs along the right edge. After the truck turns, you continue and meet a school bus stopped in the opposite direction, red lights flashing, stop arm out. A cyclist is riding the bike lane behind you. Two blocks later, a motorcycle settles in just left of your rear bumper and holds there as you approach a green light.
1. The tractor-trailer is turning right into a tight corner. Where must you not be, and why does the trailer's length matter?
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Two prohibited places, and the reason for both is the same physics.
Do not pass on the right - not in the bike lane, not in the shoulder, not in the gap between the truck and the curb. A 70-foot trailer turning into a tight corner off-tracks: the rear axles cut a path several feet inside the front wheels. To set up the turn, the driver may first swing wide to the left and then pivot, sweeping the trailer's right rear across the curb line and the bike lane. The space beside the cab that looks open is exactly the space the trailer will occupy a second later.
Do not squeeze past on the left either. The initial swing left means the trailer's tail can drift toward your lane, and a truck that has started a swing cannot simply stop and undo it.
Hold back until the whole vehicle has cleared the corner, and check that the cyclist behind you understands the same thing - a bicycle in that bike lane is at eye level with the trailer's flank and invisible to the driver.
2. The school bus is stopped in the opposite direction on this five-lane street. Do you stop?
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Yes - stop, and stay stopped until the red lights go off and the stop arm folds.
The lanes you describe are two each way with a center two-way left-turn lane: solid yellow outside, broken yellow inside. That center lane is a turning lane, not a median. It provides no physical separation between your direction and the bus, so the street is still an undivided roadway, and on an undivided roadway the stop requirement applies to traffic in both directions.
The narrow exception is a divided highway - one with a median, raised barrier, or similar physical separation - where the bus is on the opposite side of that divider. A painted center turn lane does not qualify.
When the geometry is ambiguous - an unfamiliar road, a wide painted buffer, faded markings - stop. The cost of stopping unnecessarily is a few seconds; the cost of passing a bus with its red lights flashing is a serious violation and a real risk to a child who may be crossing.
3. A motorcycle is holding position just left of your rear bumper as you approach a green light, and you intend to slow for the bus ahead. What does that change about how you drive the next few hundred feet?
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It changes how you decelerate and how you signal, because you are being followed closely by a vehicle you can easily lose track of.
- Brake early and progressively, not late and hard. A motorcycle's stopping distance on dry pavement can be short, but it depends on two small contact patches; on wet, cold, or gravelly pavement it lengthens, and a panic stop can put the bike down. A hard, unannounced stop in front of a tailgater is the setup for a rear-end collision.
- Signal well in advance and use the brake light as a message, tapping it early so the rider behind you sees your intention before you actually slow.
- Check the mirror before every deceleration, and leave yourself an out - a lane or shoulder you can use if the rider does not react.
- Do not drift left toward the bike to "make room" for the bus. A motorcycle is entitled to a full lane and may be exactly where you would move.
Also remember that a motorcycle in your blind spot can vanish for several seconds; a deliberate head-check, not just a mirror glance, is what confirms the space is yours.