In some ways, my boss is kind of like one of my brothers. Not that my brothers are soul-less, evil, amoral, racist, sexist pieces of crap. However, in the sense that we do our share of arguing on certain subjects, he is like my brothers. Mostly I just let him spew his crap and I just shut up, but when I know I can prove him wrong, I do it with gusto! I love to be right in an argument.
He has been picking me up and driving me to this out of town audit we are currently working. That gives us a good four hours a week in a car to fill up with inane conversation.
On Fridays when we leave for home, we do leave a little bit early since we have travel time to get home. From this audit, we are usually on the road just after 3:30 p.m. That’s good that I’m not getting home at 8:00 at night, but the last few weeks we’ve had to deal with school buses taking kids home in the afternoon because of leaving at 3:30 p.m.
We were on a non-divided four lane road with a school bus in the oncoming traffic lane, stopped with lights flashing letting off children. Three out of the four lanes were stopped for the bus. My boss, who has absolutely NO patience, moves over to the outside lane and blows right on through.
Of course, I have a smart aleck comment such as “nice going; so much for stopping for a stopped school bus”. He replied that in the state of Ohio, you do not have to stop on a four lane road if you are in the opposing traffic lane. I called shenanigans on that statement. I would have bet my paycheck that he was wrong.
Insert a little background info here. My dad was an elementary school bus driver for many years. When we learned how to drive, the safety instructions for when to stop for a school bus were one of the first things learned. Had my Dad ever seen me blow by a school bus, I know he’d have taken my keys away. He was that serious about this subject. I really thought if I don’t know nothing about nothing else, I know school bus law.
Instead of arguing with him all the way back to my house, I decided to let it drop and then just prove it to him! Some time that Friday night, I did a little web surfing on the Ohio Department of Transportation web site. Here is what I found regarding passing a stopped school bus:
If driving on a 4-lane roadway, the driver need not stop if on the other roadway.
This made absolutely no sense to me. So, I followed a link to e-mail in a question. I explained the situation and asked for clarification as I did not understand the website.
Last Friday, I received a very nice reply from Lieutenant Tony Bradshaw of the Ohio State Highway Patrol. He replied:
Thank you for your question about stopping for a stopped school bus. Ihave highlighted the portion of the law that will answer your question.Yes, according to Ohio law, in a four lane roadway, the opposite trafficdoes not need to stop when the school bus is stopped to let passengersoff the bus. They must stop if they are traveling in the same directionas the bus. If traffic is on a two lane road, all traffic in bothdirections must stop.
Wow. Who’d have thought.
I do so hate losing an argument to him.
2 comments:
You may have lost the arguement with your boss, but you would have been a lot safer, after all, one lane in your direction had stopped, so most normal people would have stopped along with them.
GOOD FOR YOU ANYWAY
not one to argue with Mr.Phil, I agree, much better safer than sorry. Plus, you can rack it up as another RAK (Random Act of Kindness) Set a good example, and others may stop just to see what the heck is going on.
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