School Bus, Cyclist, and a Fire Truck Behind You
You are northbound at 45 km/h on a two-lane undivided road posted at 50 km/h in a rural-residential area. A school bus travelling southbound stops ahead on the opposite side with its red lights flashing and its stop arm out. A cyclist is 15 metres ahead of you in your lane, riding at 22 km/h near the centre of the lane. At the same moment a fire truck with lights and siren appears in your mirror, closing from behind. The shoulder on your right is narrow and soft, and there is a driveway 30 metres ahead on your right.
1. Must you stop for the school bus, given that it is on the opposite side of the road?
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Yes. On an undivided two-lane road you must stop for a school bus with its red lights flashing in both directions, and stay stopped until the lights stop flashing and the stop arm retracts. The divided-highway exception - where only traffic approaching from behind must stop - does not apply here, because there is no median separating the directions.
What stopping means: Come to a stop before you reach the bus, and do not creep forward. Children crossing to or from the bus may appear from either side, and the cyclist ahead of you may be doing something unpredictable at the same moment.
The error to avoid: Treating the opposite-direction bus as someone else's problem. It is the single most heavily penalised mistake on this list precisely because drivers assume the rule is one-directional.
2. The fire truck is closing on you while the bus lights are still flashing. What do you do?
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You have two duties and they have to be reconciled, not ranked. You must yield to the emergency vehicle, and you must not pass the stopped school bus.
What that looks like:
- Pull as far to the right as is genuinely safe and stop - the driveway 30 metres ahead is a legitimate place to clear the lane if you can reach it without passing the bus.
- Do not swing left around the bus or accelerate past it to make room. That converts a courtesy into a $400-plus offence and, worse, sends you through the zone where children are loading.
- Do not pull onto the soft shoulder at speed; a narrow, soft shoulder can pull the car in and leave you stuck in the fire truck's path anyway.
If there is genuinely nowhere to clear: stop where you are, as far right as the lane allows, and let the fire truck work around you. Emergency vehicles are permitted to use the opposing lane - and here the southbound lane is being held by the bus, which makes an early, deliberate stop more valuable to the fire crew than a rushed one.
The judgement: The bus rule protects children who are on foot right now; the emergency rule protects a response in progress. You can satisfy both by stopping and clearing right. You cannot satisfy both by driving past the bus.
3. The bus lights stop flashing and the cyclist continues. How do you proceed?
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Do not simply accelerate past. The release of the red lights means the bus is done loading, not that the road ahead is clear.
Checklist before moving:
- Look for children who have stepped off and are still near the roadway, including ones who may run back for a dropped item.
- Check that the fire truck has passed or is clearly committed elsewhere.
- Reassess the cyclist, who is still only 15 metres ahead at 22 km/h and riding near the centre of the lane - a position that suggests they expect to hold the lane.
Passing the cyclist: Wait until oncoming traffic is clear and you can give at least a metre of space, more at higher speed. Do not squeeze past on a narrow road with a soft shoulder; the cyclist may need to move right for a pothole, and a metre of buffer is what makes that survivable. If you cannot pass safely, stay behind - losing 20 seconds is the correct trade.
The principle: Every hold in this scenario expires separately. The bus lights expiring releases one constraint; it does not release you from the cyclist, the fire truck, or the general requirement to only proceed when the way is clear.