Four Crossers at the Crest: The Pine Hollow Stop
Route 14 is a two-lane road with a 45 mph limit and a crest about 40 feet east of the Pine Hollow stop. It is 3:50 p.m. in early November and the low sun is directly behind Bus 12. Four students live on the west side and must cross the road; three more live on the bus side. As you brake, the four crossers stand up and move into the stairwell before you have signaled. A pickup is 300 feet behind you and closing faster than the rest of the traffic. Over the crest, you cannot tell whether that driver has seen your red lights. The route sheet places the stop at the mailbox, 30 feet past the crest, and it has been written that way for years. Your radio works and dispatch answers on the second call. The bus's stop arm extends when the door opens.
1. Walk through what you do from the moment you stop until the last of the four crossers reaches the far shoulder. Where does the bus sit, and what are your eyes doing?
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Hold the students first, then deal with the truck. Keep the brake down and the door closed until the pickup is stopped or visibly decelerating - the stop arm and red lights only protect you if traffic behind has actually registered them, and a low sun behind the bus washes out the lights. Use the PA: 'Everyone stays seated, we are waiting.'
When the pickup is stopped, open the door so the arm extends, and position the bus so the crossing path is in front of the bumper, never behind the rear wheels, where you cannot see a small student. Signal the four with a clear hand motion plus eye contact, and count aloud as they step down: four off.
Keep your eyes cycling: door, left mirror, right mirror, the crossing path, and back. Never wave and then look away. Count again as each reaches the far shoulder, and only then release the three on the bus side. If the pickup never slows, keep the students aboard, sound the horn, and radio dispatch.
2. Two of the four ignore your signal and try to step down while the pickup is still moving. What do you do, and what do you not do?
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Students move faster than your signal reaches them, so the answer is containment, not correction. Keep the door closed if you still can, block the stairwell with your arm and body without leaving the driver's seat, and say 'stop, stay on the bus' in a loud, flat voice - not a shouted lecture.
What you do not do is grab a student, leave the seat to pull someone back, or move the bus while any student's location is unaccounted for. If a student is already down on the pavement, everything else stops: horn, four-ways, both feet on the brake, eyes on that student until they are out of the roadway. No discipline problem is worth a crushed child, and no schedule is worth one either.
After the run, write a referral for each student who exited without a signal, and tell your supervisor. Handle it on paper the next morning, not at the stop arm.
3. What do you do about the crest and the location of this stop once the run is over?
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Treat the location itself as the defect. A stop 30 feet past a crest means a following driver sees your lights only after committing to the hill, and the sun behind the bus makes it worse four months of the year.
Report it in writing to transportation with specifics: the stop name, the crest distance, the sun angle and time, the near-miss with the pickup, and a request to either move the stop to the near side of the crest or designate it a no-cross stop so the four west-side students are picked up and dropped on the bus side. Ask for the change in writing so there is a record if nothing happens.
Until a decision comes back, use the interim mitigation every day: hold students until following traffic is stopped, count them out and count them in, and put a note on your route sheet. Do not simply stop using the stop or drop the students at an unapproved location.