For those involved in pupil transportation, illegal passing of school buses is a persistent and dangerous scourge. 

In the 2007-08 school year, the latest for which statistics were available, four children in the U.S. were killed by vehicles passing their bus.

A 2008 pilot program in New York, in which a school bus was equipped with a license plate reader to record stop-arm violations, led officials to estimate that there are close to 80,000 such violations per day in the state.

Without sophisticated equipment like the reader used in that pilot program, it can be a difficult task for school bus drivers to try to take down information on vehicles that illegally pass their buses. And it’s even more frustrating when motorists get away with it.

So what do you do when the vehicle that illegally drives by a school bus is … another school bus?

In early January, Ontario Provincial Police announced that it had investigated a report of a school bus failing to stop for another school bus.

Shortly after 8 a.m. on Jan. 5, one of those buses was stopped with its red lights activated and stop arm extended, preparing to pick up schoolchildren on a highway near Powassan, Ontario. Then the other bus approached from behind and allegedly proceeded to pass.

As a result of the police investigation, the driver of the second bus was charged with failing to stop for a school bus. The police didn’t specify what penalties the bus driver in this case was hit with, but stop-arm violators in the province can face fines of up to $2,000 and six demerit points.

As shocking as this incident is, it also raises a pertinent question: In addition to any penalties from law enforcement, how should a school bus operation punish one of its drivers who illegally passes another school bus?

I suspect that this is a rare kind of occurrence, but is it something that still needs to be addressed when training new drivers? More generally, this story led me to contemplate what types of transgressions, if any, should be grounds for immediate termination. 

Several years ago, when I wrote a feature on preventing child-left-on-bus incidents, some transportation directors told me that they have a zero-tolerance policy on that subject: Any school bus driver who leaves a passenger stranded on the bus will be fired, even if it’s his or her first such incident.

But some directors said they assess the punishment on a case-by-case basis. It may depend on the driver’s record and years of service, how long the child was left unattended or other circumstances. 

Given the degree of danger that comes with passing a school bus while it’s loading or unloading children, I would expect it to be an unpardonable offense for a school bus driver. But I’m more interested to hear your perspective.

Tell us about the policies at your operation — what the response would be to a bus-passing-bus incident, and what automatically leads to dismissal. Post a comment below, or send an e-mail to thomas.mcmahon@bobit.com.