Quick question about right of way and who's at fault

[shiffles]

Not my usual video about publicly shaming people for their shenanigans.

I was on my way back home after dropping my brother off at his school.
The school buses usually pick kids up in my neighbourhood for a school that's close by and that's totally fine.
What I don't get is what happened in the video.
Ever since my "learner's permit" days, I've always been taught that you are to give right of way to the oncoming vehicle when you are passing parked vehicles on an undivided two way road. I always try to follow this unless there is absolutely no room what so ever. But now I have a feeling it doesn't apply to school bus drivers.

So who is at fault here? Feel free to bash me if I'm at fault

 

[shiffles]

So apparently I'm at fault. So I guess that answers my question lol

 

[Nigel]

Can't comment on the video since it is private, and I don't know much about Canadian law, but in general if you need to cross the centre line of the road then you should give way, even if the centre line is not marked. If that means that both vehicles need to give way then you have to negotiate who goes first, normally it will be the person who would find it most difficult/inconvenient to give way.

 

[shiffles]

Can't comment on the video since it is private, and I don't know much about Canadian law, but in general if you need to cross the centre line of the road then you should give way, even if the centre line is not marked. If that means that both vehicles need to give way then you have to negotiate who goes first, normally it will be the person who would find it most difficult/inconvenient to give way.

Yeah sorry. I made it private after someone mentioned "if a cop saw this he/she would ticket you".

What I learned today is that I would yield to oncoming cars even if they're on the side of the road with parked cars.

 

[DT MI]

Yeah sorry. I made it private after someone mentioned "if a cop saw this he/she would ticket you".....

Probably meant if they saw you in person, not in a video after the fact. Not sure about Canada but in the US I'm pretty sure misdemeanors (unlike felonies) have to be witnessed by the LEO for them to take action.

 

[Gibson99]

If you are already going around parked cars when a vehicle starts coming from the opposite direction, you have the right of way.

If you and another vehicle are approaching each other, and there's a parked car on your side, you have to yield to the other guy.

If there are cars parked on both sides, then whoever gets there first has right of way. If you get there at the same time, you should pause and work it out with the other driver by waving them past, flashing your lights or just pulling over and stopping to allow them to go. Or waiting for them to let you go.

 

[shiffles]

Video back up due to popular demand

enjoy me being dumb

 

[Nigel]

Video back up due to popular demand

enjoy me being dumb

I think Gibson99's first rule applies in this case: "If you are already going around parked cars when a vehicle starts coming from the opposite direction, you have the right of way."

It would have been sensible for you to slow down enough that the bus had enough time to get passed the cars and back onto it's side of the road before you arrived, that is what the bus driver would have been expecting.

 

[kamkar]

I think here the bus should yeld as its in its side of the roads there is things blocking / narrowing the road, bus dont even appear to slow down a bit.

What ever it is i think i would have slowed down in this situation and let the bus do its thing.

 

[Rajagra]

I'm watching on my phone. What am I missing? You drive on the right, is that correct? The right hand side of the road was clear. The bus had at least one honking great gap he could have pulled in to, did he not? How can anyone say the bus had priority?

Sent from my tap-to-talk using Tapatalk

 

[sludgeguts]

Video isn't playing too well for some reason, however.
Bus pulls out of side road & immediately comes onto your side of the road?
Seeing as these are quite large vehicles, it wouldn't have hurt you to wait alongside that honking great big gap, so allowing him to pull in. there is another gap further along but that doesn't appear quite as large (hard to tell due to the video not playing correctly).
I assume your laws are similar in that the vehicle with priority doesn't have the parked cars in front of them?

 

[DavidUK]

If you drive on the right over there, you are IN the right!
Had you collided, he would be at fault.
You do not have to make any allowances for someone in YOUR lane, although you might have worried about colliding earlier.
There can be no excuse when overtaking parked vehicles:

• when you would force another road user to swerve or slow down (UK Highway Code - Rule 167).

He should have known better driving a school bus.

 

[flank]

For me, whom ever has the largest vehicle has the right of way

 

[DT MI]

For me, whom ever has the largest vehicle has the right of way

Don't you mean 'right of weigh'?

 

[Gibson99]

I think Gibson99's first rule applies in this case: "If you are already going around parked cars when a vehicle starts coming from the opposite direction, you have the right of way."

It would have been sensible for you to slow down enough that the bus had enough time to get passed the cars and back onto it's side of the road before you arrived, that is what the bus driver would have been expecting.

agree - the bus was already going around the cars, so you should have slowed/stopped before the first car on your left so he had plenty of room to go between you and the parked cars.

video is playing really weird on my win10 pc in chrome - it's treating it like a 3d video that i can drag around with my mouse, but things look weirdly stretched to the sides, so it's really hard to gauge distance, especially for things like the gap that some are saying the bus could have pulled into. the stretching is so bad it looked like you were going to have a direct head-on crash with the bus. when i click the gear to try to change resolution, it says it's playing in 720s (not 720p) - surround? all the lower resolution options also ended in S. never seen that before, but then i've never tried to change the resolution on a 3d video before.

 

[erkme73]

In FL, traffic MUST yield to buses. I don't know if that includes school buses, or just public transportation buses. If this had been a delivery truck or other larger vehicle that doesn't have the legal right of way, you would have been in the clear. Obviously the bus had to come on to your side of the road to get past the parked vehicles. As is the case with passing any obstruction (mail delivery vehicle, trash truck, etc), I would think it is the duty/responsibility of the driver of the vehicle that is encroaching into the oncoming lane to make sure it's safe to do so. That said, there is a certain courtesy that smaller cars/drivers should extend to larger vehicles that are not as maneuverable or nimble.

 

[Gibson99]

In FL, traffic MUST yield to buses. I don't know if that includes school buses, or just public transportation buses. If this had been a delivery truck or other larger vehicle that doesn't have the legal right of way, you would have been in the clear. Obviously the bus had to come on to your side of the road to get past the parked vehicles. As is the case with passing any obstruction (mail delivery vehicle, trash truck, etc), I would think it is the duty/responsibility of the driver of the vehicle that is encroaching into the oncoming lane to make sure it's safe to do so. That said, there is a certain courtesy that smaller cars/drivers should extend to larger vehicles that are not as maneuverable or nimble.

in TX the only time you have to do anything special for a bus is if it's a school bus AND it has its red lights flashing to load/unload kids. otherwise, you treat them just like any other large vehicle on the road - give them space to make wide turns, avoid their big blind spots, that kind of thing.

as for the buses themselves - the only oddity i know of is that (at least in Houston), all public transit and school buses are required to turn on their 4-way flashers and stop and look both ways before crossing railroad tracks, even if the crossing guards are up and the lights aren't flashing, and even if the road the bus is on has a green light. I used to live close to the main bus barn for the local school district. there's a railroad crossing near the bus bar, so i quickly learned to completely avoid the area of the bus barn around 7am (when buses are going out for morning pickup), 8:30-9am (finished morning dropoffs), 1pm and 4pm. drivers are required to stop and look before crossing train tracks even if they don't have any passengers.

 

[erkme73]

Yeah, it's codified here. but I think it's only for buses that pull back into traffic.

 

[Gibson99]

now that you mention it, i've seen those labels before when visiting other states - maybe in Massachusetts. not in texas though. our city buses have stickers that say "caution: children may exit this bus" in english and in spanish - that's the yellow and black sticker you see below. of course it's always good to be extra careful when passing a stopped city bus, but it's not illegal here.

it's really hard to find a good clear pic of the back of the bus like yours above - but that's partly because photobucket is down for maintenance right now, so all i could get were some thumbnails from google image search. maybe by the time you read this, photobucket will be back up and you can go here to see the actual image.