Remember when you could pass a school bus that had stopped to pick up or drop off children?

I do.

Getting stuck behind a school bus was such a pain in the neck.  It would go so slow through the neighborhood.  Whenever I got stuck behind a bus, I would go, “Ugh!  I’m stuck behind a stupid bus!”  I would look for any opportunity to get around it.  The bus making a stop provided such an opportunity.

Then we started hearing about kids who got squashed because they ran out of the bus and crossed the street without looking both ways.  I remember being excited when I got off the school bus.  But looking both ways before you cross the street was one of those things they taught you early on.  When I heard these tragic stories I said to myself, “Well, they should have looked both ways.”

Obviously some people did not agree.  Because now school buses have a stop sign appended to their left side that swivels out whenever the bus makes a stop, cautioning drivers from both directions to stop until the bus moves away and retracts the sign.  If you get stuck behind a bus like that you’re going to be late to wherever you’re going.

I guess it’s safer this way.  I guess tragedies have been averted, and that is much more valuable than the time drivers lose by having to stop for stopped buses.

But I wonder if these kids grow up thinking that all buses come equipped with retractable stop signs?