I almost got injured by a school bus today

[biker72]

Originally Posted by Mr. Pink

It was a big bus. And no, I made no mistakes. Honest. All of a sudden in a tight place, and I'm basically on the white line, I've got a bus exhaling a very big noise (downshifting? Air brake) then quickly a honk of the horn, just as I enter the intersection, and, bam, he turns right in front of me.
Listen, I'm 64, been driving all of my adult life, cycling thirty years. This was not a good situation. School bus drivers never drive like this. Late? Gimme a break. That justifies almost crushing me under the rear wheels? That's how cyclists get killed a lot in Manhattan, not the burbs.
In the end, it will just be a little mark in his/her record, I guess. But, enough of those marks, and it's time to look for a new job, and I did a lot of cyclists and motorists a favor, if that happens. Hell, the Mexican and Central American landscape truck drivers around here, who are numerous, and working all day, show me ten times more respect. Maybe we need the threat of deportation along with the numerous and random drug tests I hope they're subjected to at the school bus company to mellow these drivers a bit.

They do in Dallas. Dallas County Schools bus company is about to go bankrupt partially for unpaid speeding and red light running tickets. This is a 3rd party company that Dallas and many suburb schools use for busing kids to school.

[zap]

edit

Originally Posted by Mr. Pink

Yes, a school bus. I live in fairly wealthy near exurbia,

Glad you are ok.

But ZAP is not surprised.

I had several incidents in Merryland including attempted assault with flipper and passing around a bend and cutting me off while I was riding 2 mph over the speed limit. ZAP lectured guilty drivers, talked to police and finally the safety director for the school district. The conversation with the safety director appeared to be productive.

[john903]

Wow, Grrr this really irks me. So let me say I am a school bus driver and also the driver trainer here in Sequim Driving for the Sequim School District. First I want to apologize this happened like everything else a few drivers make us all look bad. Regardless I would say defiantly contact the transportation department and specifically the driver trainer. Do you know if this was a school district bus or a contract service like Durham,First student this would make a difference on who to call. I know if this happened in my district from one of my drivers there would I want to know about it and there would be some remedial training. It is sad to hear all the horror stories from you all from various parts of the country. So just saying please don't think we are all like that but if you see bad driving behavior by all means please report it. When you report someone go to the transportation department supervisor or driver trainer. If you don't get results go to the school district superintendent. Believe me we want to know if our drivers are not behaving properly. When I train you better believe I include bicycles in my course.
Anyway have a great day

[vqdriver]

i'd be angry as well, and think the op is handling it fine.

but i think there's a mistake in assuming that a 'school bus' driver has any different mentality than a 'transit bus' driver. i give them no benefit of the doubt. if anything, here in a city or burb, i'm grateful that they beepbeeped me to alert me to the fact that they will cut me off

[ultraman6970]

In my county you have to pay your own tickets, I do get that is not just go an stop a 30 ton bus and is imperative as a driver to time the things right. The other big problem is that if you have more than 2 tickets for year they will fire your butt out, is not toilet paper what you are transporting and any mistake you can kill somebody w/o any problem, so at least in my area are really serious about it. When you have over 1000 drivers or you get tough or all sort of bad stuff starts going on.

One of the rules? Keep it cool all the time, that episode of following another driver with the passengers inside? Here sure gets you fired.

Here some buses cant go over 45 because the governors are set to that speed but who knows how is in the OP's area and who knows which are the rules they have out there too and who knows if they care. Here when something happens to a driver always somebody from the training office is in the investigating crew so they can get some feedback and get something good off the bad things that happened.

When I was being trained I tried to bring cyclist and at least one of the trainer drivers kind'a say F.. them! I listened his side of the story and I always say this, the reason why cyclist have bad blood is because almost 95% of them rides in the streets in a non responsible manner like if the streets was all for them... so at the time of problems like the OP you have to wonder... "ok, but the bike rider was doing dumb things?"... personally I will talk with the people of trianing so they add like a 15 minutes chapter on cyclists and how to deal with them because I really dont want to die under a bus and I wouldnt like any fellow driver to deal with a problem with a cyclist.

I have a super nice example of stupidity, every day I see two kids riding their bikes to school, zig zagging would be a problem IMO but the issue is that this 2 suckers are riding at the wrong side of the road and I see them daily riding towards me... dont ask me why... I know how to deal with them but honestly one of this days one will crash a SUV heads on...

[benb]

Actually this year I was behind a school bus right on the main drag in our town and watched the driver decide to drive on the wrong side of the road to bypass traffic.. so it's not like little kids on their bikes do that and the bus drivers don't. We're talking whole bus totally over the double yellow for maybe 300 yards to get to the left turn without waiting for the traffic jam of people driving straight through the intersection to clear out. So not totally insane GTA behavior but certainly something most of us would get a big fat ticket for if we did it in our cars.

I actually called about that one.

[Mr. Pink]

An update: I e-mailed the "transportation manager" of the local school district with my issue, along with time, place, and plate number, so, they know who this driver is. No response for going on two weeks. It's sliding away in my mind, too, I have to admit, although just yesterday (Sunday) I'm riding close to that spot and a little guy in my head starts jumping up and down and tells me to, you know, follow up. But then I wake up and see this : http://gothamist.com/2017/06/18/cycl..._bus_drive.php which just sets me off, because that's the second time in a week or so, in the same neighborhood, that a cyclist was killed under the wheels of a bus. Last week was a thirty something young father of a small child who worked in finance, and was an avid cyclist, but this time he was on a Citibike, which he used every morning for eight blocks to get to work. If you have a subscription to the NYT, there's a better story about the 80 year old there, along with a picture of him with his bike (looks like a rigid mtb with smoother tires). He closed his shoe shop after 9/11, and rode his bike out of his probably rent controlled or subsidized apartment in the west twenties almost every day since then, if the weather was good. A little gem of a New York story. I wanted to spit.

So, I walked over to the computer and forwarded the e-mail I sent to Mr. Transportation Manager to the Superntendent of schools, with a, " I hope at least I get a response from this office". Bam, in a few hours I do, basically an apology, and were on this right now, and, bam, the transportation manager e-mails an apology and cc's his E-mail from the manager of the private company that runs this operation. Seems that, if I believe it, somebody is going to get a talking to and a little "retraining", especially n the subject of how to interact with cyclists on the road.

At this point, that's about all I can expect, although I still call bs if somebody doesn't contact me for more details. But, the way I see it, if that driver pulls something else as stupid, or gets a ticket of some sort, I've helped establish a file on the person that will help get them off the road, driving a large, heavy vehicle through tight, meandering roads. Thanks, Superintendent's office.

[d_douglas]

Originally Posted by Seramount

CAP Metro bus drivers here LOOOOVE to pull to/away from the curb directly in front of cyclists.

they must take special training to get the timing down to produce the most dangerous scenarios.

I cant stand when public transit buses 'Thank you for the Brake' (its a bumper sticker on buses in our city) by pulling out in front of you just because they have the perceived right. It has happened many times.

As a driver as well, they will be dropping passengers and it seems to me that without a care, they pull out into traffic, assuming that everyone will stop. I respect the need to give buses a right of way, but I feel like they should be more vigilant with their road manners, frankly.