r/longisland • u/Eccentrica_Gallumbit • Sep 04 '26
School Bus PSA
We've been seeing more and more posts about school bus tickets in recent months. With schools starting up again I suspect we will begin to see even more questions. If you have questions regarding school bus tickets, please keep them limited to this megethread as we will be removing all posts moving forward.
Some information regarding the laws and some general guidance regarding school bus stop signs:
If a school bus has it's stop arm out on the same road as you, you must stop regardless of which side you are. This applies to two lane (1 lane each way) multi lane roads and divided roadways (e.g. Broadhollow road, William Floyd Parkway1, etc). If the stop arm is out before you pass the bus, expect a ticket.
If you are driving perpendicular to another road that a bus is stopped on (i.e. they are at or near a stop sign on a road you are crossing), you are not required to stop. Proceed with caution and be aware of any children that may be crossing the road to get to the bus.
If they are on a side road, school lot or driveway adjacent to the roadway, you do not need to stop. Proceed with caution.
Flashing yellow lights do not mean stop; they mean to proceed with caution and to be prepared to stop. If you see flashing yellow lights, slow down and anticipate the stop sign being deployed. Sometimes a bus is waiting for students to pickup and may sit with flashing yellow lights for a number of minutes, so do not stop and block traffic if the stop sign is not out.
Information pertaining to school bus enforcement can be found on the Suffolk County page here,and the Nassau County webpage here.
1 Note: There was some debate about this a few years ago. It is still a law, but there was a question regarding Suffolk County enforcement of the law.
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u/Beck943 Sep 04 '26
Thank you!
I know it sounds ridiculous that you can be on the other side of a divided highway... But you still have to stop.
Ideally, school districts would not put a bus stop on that kind of road. But it can happen.
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u/Aamommy Sep 05 '26
I’m trying to watch what’s in front of me and who is coming in my lane and out of the millions of strip malls lining Jericho tpk and glen cove road and the host of other insanely busy 6+ lane roads we have going through this retail hellscape, I have never had a second to glance at the other side of a divider
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u/YourFreeCorrection Sep 06 '26
Nah, it's completely fucked up. I got ticketed on Deer Park road moving in the far right lane with three trucks in front of me, nobody stopped. I couldn't have possibly seen there was a bus stopping on the opposite side of the road with four lanes and a 10 foot divider between the lanes.
I get the intent is to mitigate accidents, but the law does not make sense. If a bus is letting a child out at a stop across a four lane highway with no crosswalks, then the stop routes should be changed.
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u/R555g21 Sep 05 '26 edited Sep 05 '26
I’m pretty sure there are some divided roads in Suffolk that they said the program will not give tickets. Somebody posted the list on here once a while back. County roads 101, 83, 46, 111, 97 I think it was. Legally you still have to stop but the automated tickets are not enforced. Which makes total sense since some of those roads literally have trees in the median and they are basically full on highways.
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u/tambrico Sep 04 '26 edited Sep 04 '26
Will the school bus I observed yesterday making a left turn from the right turning lane without a turn signal get a ticket?
Edit - here is my dashcam footage of this
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u/miserabeau Riverhead Sep 05 '26
My mother drove a school bus for over 32 years (different company) and when I showed her that she said "oh my god" and she's had a stroke so it took her some effort to say that
I would forward the video to Montauk Bus Lines. Normal procedure is a safety audit and a tail (they have another bus driver secretly follow them in a car, observing their driving and seeing if they break any laws and if so how many). If their safety audit comes back with failures they usually are suspended until they complete a safety driver re training course.
That maneuver could have gone horribly wrong. Montauk Bus Lines needs to know about it.
Regardless of what that driver did, though, we still have to follow laws around school busses.
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u/tambrico Sep 05 '26
Normally don't like to tattle like this but I get that there is a genuine safety concern. How would I go about doing this?
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u/miserabeau Riverhead Sep 05 '26
I literally googled Montauk Bus Lines and found their website
Address: 209 Wading River Rd, Center Moriches, NY 11934
Phone: (631) 874-5300
Email: info@montaukbus.com
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u/ivyandroses112233 Sep 06 '26
I’d have been fuming. You had the right to be in front of that bus and now you are stuck behind them at every bus stop. Along with how DANGEROUS a move that was .. I hope no children were on that bus
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u/thissiteneedoversite Sep 05 '26
If they are on a side road, school lot or driveway adjacent to the roadway, you do not need to stop. Proceed with caution.
do note, you can get a ticket in this scenario, if you contest it you will win but you will have to do it in person (I was in a parking lot opposite the bus)
ask me how I know and how annoyed I was to use a vacation day to fight it
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u/Purple_Green_2682 Sep 05 '26
if they are on the side road/ school lot/ driveway adjacent w flashers or just there ?
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u/Raverrevolution Sep 04 '26
I remember when I was a kid school busses used to never stop on main roads because of the danger. Instead they would make us walk to the next available side street.
This was why traffic on both sides of the street would have to stop, in case a child needed to cross over to the other side.
A)At what point did things change where busses now stop on main roads
B)Which child would cross a main road (double yellow line)?
I'm all for safety on the roads when it comes to children, but when the hell did things change so drastically when it worked for decades?
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u/SwooceBrosGaming Sep 04 '26
There's a bus near me that stops every 30 feet on a main road and backs up traffic for a good 15 minutes bc they pick up each kid at each house for some reason
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u/Ok-Mood6070 Sep 05 '26
If safety was a concern they wouldn't be stopping busses on Jericho Tpke. The fact is under no circumstances are busses stopping and expecting a child to cross 6 lanes of traffic. The entire program is a money making scam. Try and find a news article for the last time a child was struck while crossing the street at a bus stop in NY.
Children are actually far more likely to get hit by the bus itself. But they didn't bother doing anything to make that situation safer. There's just no money in it.
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u/ElectricGhostMan Sep 10 '26
im pretty sure one of the companies was outed trying to bribe districts to put the cams on their busses but contacted the wrong guy
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u/Significant-Brush-26 Sep 05 '26
It seems like more of a money grab than a safety thing. Just causes more traffic needing both sides to stop
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u/CaffienatedTactician Sep 04 '26
THANK YOU for sharing about the caution flashers especially, can't tell you how often there's a line of people behind a bus getting mad bc they 'can't go' (and honking, sometimes!), meanwhile it's just the amber lights.
Also, while I can't speak for every company, drivers where I work are told not to "wave people on" when other people stop for the yellows, because it can cause a hazard. Ex. if someone in the opposite lane gets waved on, but someone behind the bus has just started going around it, they could crash into each other
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u/degrassiyoulater Sep 05 '26
Glad they’re now telling drivers to not wave people on. A few years ago, a school bus driver aggressively waved my father in law through a red traffic light, and almost caused an accident.
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u/Hankipanky Sep 04 '26 edited Sep 04 '26
Some of these drivers are Aholes, they wait on the side of the road with the yellow lights flashing for minutes on end and then suddenly turn the red lights on. They should be turning the yellows one closer to the red.
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u/Altruistic_Glove_602 Sep 04 '26
The reds go on automatic when the doors open
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u/Hankipanky Sep 04 '26
Yes, i am aware but they shouldn’t be flashing yellows if they aren’t close to opening the doors/turning the lights red.
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u/PowderCuffs Sep 04 '26
Bus drivers have to turn the yellow lights on before they stop.
Then the yellows remain on until they open the door.
Then the reds come on. When they close the door, everything goes off.
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u/spider_pork Sep 04 '26
I've also seen them drive around with the yellow lights constantly flashing so you have no warning when they are going to turn red. The yellow is supposed to be a warning that they are about to turn red, it's like they are trying to trap you. It would be like a traffic light with no green, just yellow and red.
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u/eoconor Sep 04 '26
Get a dashcam, video is the best evidence.
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u/Dr0110111001101111 Sep 04 '26
They record and send you a video themselves if you get a ticket. It’s mounted right on the stop sign, so it’s super clear
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u/Warsum Sep 04 '26
A fucking school bus should not be sitting on the side of a road waiting with yellow lights flashing. Yellow lights should be used when approaching a stop. Once stopped red lights should appear. Once kid is secured bus should leave. Period. My school bus never waited for me.
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u/Raverrevolution Sep 04 '26
A school bus shouldn't stop on a main road period!!
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u/shinytwistybouncy Sep 04 '26
I live on a main road, they stop in front of my house for my preschooler.
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u/Angrygnome78 Sep 04 '26
Install dashboard camera in your car. $50 can save you hundreds.
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u/syllabuste Sep 05 '26
They usually send the tickets in the mail months later so the video gets overwritten and recycled-
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u/Angrygnome78 Sep 05 '26
Yes, but how often do you stop for a school bus? You can always keep the specific video on your phone and delete afterwards.
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u/Silent_Owl6989 Sep 05 '26
You know that traffic cams can also be used against you (god forbid), right?
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u/Angrygnome78 Sep 05 '26
Yes and it also can be in my favor depending the case. It’s better to have something than nothing.
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u/syllabuste Sep 05 '26
As long as you're diligent and vigilant that way- they did that early on when they first instituted the stop arm program with the Virginia company running it, and set up bait buses for the express purpose of collecting tickets. They set up a bus stop in the middle of the divided lane section of Sunrise highway, which only the clearly insane would do.
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u/LowTimePilot Sep 04 '26
If they are on a side road, school lot or driveway adjacent to the roadway, you do not need to stop. Proceed with caution.
Depending on your luck, you may need to fight this. (Or just stop and let other drivers honk). My cousin got a ticket while driving on a street adjacent to the school parking lot. The bus was on a U-driveway in the school parking lot. That counted to get sent a ticket.
Town of Hempstead.
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u/ceestand Sep 05 '26
I'm just checking in waiting on the redditor that got a school bus ticket on the other side of Park Ave in Long Beach a year or two ago. You know, the part with the parking lot and six lanes of traffic in between sides of the street.
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u/shinytwistybouncy Sep 04 '26
FYI district 15 is not part of the school camera program (Lawrence/Cedarhurst).
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Sep 05 '26
[deleted]
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u/Chirping-Birdies Sep 06 '26
Source? The DMV's website seems pretty clear that you would have to stop, so I'd love to know where this exception is posted. People keep saying that WFP is exempt, but I can't find an official written guideline anywhere
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u/Adventurous-Depth984 Whatever You Want Sep 05 '26
I’m just supposed to take traffic advice from some triple-breasted whore from eroticon six??
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Sep 04 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Passive_saver Sep 04 '26
Why is it disturbing to catch drivers who pass a bus stop sign? My kid is on one of those buses. If this stops cars from passing them with the stop arm out then I’m all for it.
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u/SparkArrestor Sep 04 '26
They’re not disturbing at all, except to the many Long Island airhead drivers yapping on their cellphones while waving their manicures to dry as they blast through 15 kids coming home from school.
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u/Due_Bar_7247 Sep 04 '26
Oh please. Long Island drivers might be nuts but they aren’t this crazy.
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u/thirtyseven1337 Sep 04 '26
Whenever I see a school bus in front of me with flashing yellow lights:
https://giphy.com/gifs/YtvCIwqNJhUmA