“Approached By Officer, Threatened With Summons”

A police officer knocked on my door today and informed me that there had been "several" complaints against my driving, including that of a school bus driver. Heres the story:

Turned off of a main road onto a typical suburban side street. No center line, etc. There is a school on the right, and a church on the left.

There is a line of school busses waiting to load kids (time is approx 3:35pm), one of which is on the road with its amber four-way flashers on (turn signal hazards, not the red ones near the roof). There are cars all along the right hand curb, so the bus is double parked and more or less in the middle of the road. There is more than enough room for me to go around on the left.

I noticed the amber four-ways, and the line up of busses waiting to load, so without even thinking twice I went around the bus. There was no one coming from the other direction. Probably doing around 30 km/h.

When I get to the front of the bus there is a woman walking with two kids across the road, literally right infront of the bus's hood. Next to no time to react, just kinda flicked the wheel and moved to brake. Hit the curb in doing so. To maintain my honesty here, I'll admit that I did mash the accelerator after this incident as I was pretty pissed off. Stupid place to cross.

My house is about 150 meters from where the bus was stopped. Half way to it I looked at the speed. Doing a couple ticks over 40km/h, so lets assume 42. Tuned into driveway, shut the Jeep of and went inside.

Got a knock on the door about 10 or 15 min later. Police officer informs me "several" people have submitted complaints against my driving, including the bus driver. Takes my information. He says people claim I jumped the curb to go aroud a bus with its red warning lights on, and that I was driving too fast and almost hit several people. One man claimed he had to pull his kid out from infront of my truck.

I'm a truck driver by trade. I own my own truck and trailer and run under my own name, driving flatbed across North America. The actions I've been accused of are not something I'd even dream of doing, especially on my own damn street.

The officer said to expect a summons in the mail.

How muffed am I? Its essentially the word of "several" others against my own, do I even have a chance?

If you get a ticket for blowing by a school bus with signals at least one the witnesses is going to have to testify against you. Unlike police officers civilians are not paid to be witnesses so someone would have to be pretty motivated to show up to testify against you. More witnesses may actually be better because it is more likely that they will contradict one another. It all starts with a disclosure request.

Thanks for the reply.

I'll definitely revive this thread and post more information when I get disclosure if I do get the summons.

Just wanted to get some opinions. I'm extremely worried, especially since people take anything near a school so personally. What I've been accused of doing must be on par to murder to some parents -_-'

Jeepster wrote:

There is a line of school busses waiting to load kids (time is approx 3:35pm), one of which is on the road with its amber four-way flashers on (turn signal hazards, not the red ones near the roof).

As far as I know, it is not illegal to pass a bus if they have the yellow lights flashing, only if the red lights are flashing are you not allowed to pass them. To me, it is the height of inconsideration for school buses to load children onto them knowing full well it can take several minutes and with traffic waiting waiting waiting. There should be areas within the school property itself so that they can load the children there.

I'd be surprised if you actually got charged with anything because technically you did nothing illegal.

Mary wrote:

Jeepster wrote:

There is a line of school busses waiting to load kids (time is approx 3:35pm), one of which is on the road with its amber four-way flashers on (turn signal hazards, not the red ones near the roof).

As far as I know, it is not illegal to pass a bus if they have the yellow lights flashing, only if the red lights are flashing are you not allowed to pass them. To me, it is the height of inconsideration for school buses to load children onto them knowing full well it can take several minutes and with traffic waiting waiting waiting. There should be areas within the school property itself so that they can load the children there.

I'd be surprised if you actually got charged with anything because technically you did nothing illegal.

There is a place on the school property. A big D shaped driveway. The school is at 80 Ribblesdsle Drive, Whitby, Ontario. Use Google maps / satellite image to see what I mean. They can fit 4 school busses against the curb in their parkinglot, but probably 7 or 8 busses come a day. The bus I passe wasnt unloadinhg or offloading, just waiting to get in the parking lot.

I know full well that I did nothing illegal in regards to passing the stopped bus. But apparently at least one of the "several" people who called said the red lights were on. Oh well, I guess its a matter of cross examining each statement and disproving their credibility one by one.