Earl Purple wrote:

This is from today's London Lite, (P13).

These are the kind of bus stops that drivers hate but TfL thought were
a great idea - instead of gonig into a layby to allow traffic to pass,
the bus simply blocks the road. I don't think the intention is so that
the buses can easily move out again, it is deliberate anti-car policy.
"Hey you can't go faster than a bus so leave the car at home and take
the bus"".

No, the main reason is to eliminate the risk of accidents when people
cross the street in front of the bus before the bus drives away. When
people do so, there is a great risk that a car passing the standing bus
hit the pedestrians. It is a quite common kind of traffic accident in
most countries, especially at bus stops where lots of children go on or
off buses.

--
Olof Lagerkvist
ICQ: 724451
Web: http://here.is/olof

Olof Lagerkvist wrote:
Earl Purple wrote:

No, the main reason is to eliminate the risk of accidents when people
cross the street in front of the bus before the bus drives away. When
people do so, there is a great risk that a car passing the standing bus
hit the pedestrians. It is a quite common kind of traffic accident in
most countries, especially at bus stops where lots of children go on or
off buses.

Crossing in front of the bus before the bus drives away is a very
stupid thing to do.

In the USA, when a school bus is stopped they sometimes stop all the
traffic around it, a bit over-zealously at times.

One concept (for London buses), if you want to allow the bus to pull
out again, would be to have traffic lights on the back of the bus
itself, thus as the bus needs to pull out the light would go red for
traffic and the bus driver would have his own set of lights and he
would wait for green. These signals would generate automatically with
the bus driver's normal manoeuvres so while the doors are open they
would be green for passing traffic and red for the bus. After it goes
red for the traffic it would wait a few seconds to allow them to
complete the passing manoeuvre but at least the bus would get out
within a few seconds.

If pedestrians want to cross, I guess they could do so safely behind
the bus, once the bus signal goes red. Once the bus pulls out the
signal on the bus will go out.

Earl Purple wrote:

In the USA, when a school bus is stopped they sometimes stop all the
traffic around it, a bit over-zealously at times.

School buses don't operate every 5 minutes...

One concept (for London buses), if you want to allow the bus to pull
out again, would be to have traffic lights on the back of the bus
itself, thus as the bus needs to pull out the light would go red for
traffic and the bus driver would have his own set of lights and he
would wait for green.

Traffic lights behind the bus stop could be provided, if it's a real
problem. These could turn red a specified amount of time (30 seconds?)
after activation of the induction loop in the stop, and turn green
again a specified amount of time (10 seconds?) after the induction loop
in the stop no longer detected the bus.

Traffic light arrangements like these are common in Germany and the
Netherlands, and work very well. They're also used to allow such
things as a bus turning left from a right-hand bus lane, or for buses
to overtake a line of stationary cars (the latter setups exist in the
UK in places - Peartree P&R in Oxford is one example).

Neil

"Earl Purple" wrote

[snip]

In the USA, when a school bus is stopped they sometimes stop all
the
traffic around it, a bit over-zealously at times.

[snip]

In the USA, when a school bus stops to let children on or off, it
turns on big red flashing lights that mean all other traffic must
stop. That's pretty universal in every state. Almost any flashing
red light in the USA implies that you must stop.

Stopping for a school bus, unlike, say, parking too close to a fire
hydrant, is one of those laws that public opinion expects you to
obey. Americans don't like people putting their children at risk.

"A bit over zealously at times" I take it is a euphemism for "I got a
ticket once for not doing it"

Jeremy Parker

Jeremy Parker wrote:
"Earl Purple" wrote

In the USA, when a school bus stops to let children on or off, it
turns on big red flashing lights that mean all other traffic must
stop. That's pretty universal in every state. Almost any flashing
red light in the USA implies that you must stop.

Stopping for a school bus, unlike, say, parking too close to a fire
hydrant, is one of those laws that public opinion expects you to
obey. Americans don't like people putting their children at risk.

"A bit over zealously at times" I take it is a euphemism for "I got a
ticket once for not doing it"

No, I don't recall a red flashing light, I seem to remember a patrol
manually stopping everyone, and when I say "a bit over zealously" I
mean that I wasn't actually crossing the path, I was turning out of a
side road in the other direction to where the bus was doing the pick
up, and was going very slowly.

I do know that they have school runs in the USA just like we do, and
not every child goes to school on the bus - many have their parents
drop them off and they do just as many bad manouevres. It was very
common for cars to stop on a pedestrian crossing opposite the school.
Yes, right on it.

Earl Purple wrote in message
:

Jeremy Parker wrote:
"Earl Purple" wrote

In the USA, when a school bus stops to let children on or off, it
turns on big red flashing lights that mean all other traffic must
stop. That's pretty universal in every state. Almost any flashing
red light in the USA implies that you must stop.

Stopping for a school bus, unlike, say, parking too close to a fire
hydrant, is one of those laws that public opinion expects you to
obey. Americans don't like people putting their children at risk.

"A bit over zealously at times" I take it is a euphemism for "I got a
ticket once for not doing it"

No, I don't recall a red flashing light, I seem to remember a patrol
manually stopping everyone, and when I say "a bit over zealously" I
mean that I wasn't actually crossing the path, I was turning out of a
side road in the other direction to where the bus was doing the pick
up, and was going very slowly.

I do know that they have school runs in the USA just like we do, and
not every child goes to school on the bus - many have their parents
drop them off and they do just as many bad manouevres. It was very
common for cars to stop on a pedestrian crossing opposite the school.
Yes, right on it.

When I went to see my sister and her family in Boston and borrowed their
car, they warned me about school buses. The red lights apply not only to
traffic behind the bus which is banned from overtaking but also to oncoming
traffic which is not allowed to pass the front of the bus if the red lights
are flashing.

Frustrating, but probably a good idea. At least in America they have the
concept of part-time speed limits: many schools seemed to have a 35 mph
limit in force for most of the day but a 25 or even 15 during very specific
arrival and departure hours. In the UK, we'd probably impose a blanket
24-hours-a-day 20 limit :-(

Martin Underwood wrote:

When I went to see my sister and her family in Boston and borrowed their
car, they warned me about school buses. The red lights apply not only to
traffic behind the bus which is banned from overtaking but also to oncoming
traffic which is not allowed to pass the front of the bus if the red lights
are flashing.

Frustrating, but probably a good idea. At least in America they have the
concept of part-time speed limits: many schools seemed to have a 35 mph
limit in force for most of the day but a 25 or even 15 during very specific
arrival and departure hours. In the UK, we'd probably impose a blanket
24-hours-a-day 20 limit :-(

I would like to see part-time speed limits here, and also I would like
to see limits of 25mph and 35mph where appropriate, rather than the
steps in 10. On many roads, the speed limit should be 25mph but instead
they reduce it all the way down to 20mph which is far too slow.

"Earl Purple" wrote

[snip]

I would like to see part-time speed limits here, and also I would
like
to see limits of 25mph and 35mph where appropriate, rather than the
steps in 10. On many roads, the speed limit should be 25mph but
instead
they reduce it all the way down to 20mph which is far too slow.

American traffic engineers base speed limits on what drivers actually
do. They measure the speeds of motorists, and then set the limit to
turn one driver in seven into criminals.

I imagine the percentage of criminally minded is about the same among
Brit's, at least based on the comments of those posting in
uk.rec.transport

Jeremy Parker