In almost all traffic scenarios, drivers are required to stop for school buses that are stopped while picking up or dropping off students on morning or afternoon bus routes.
There have been at least 177 reported instances of “illegal passing of school buses,” across the Treasure Coast so far in 2025.
The Florida Department of Education collects and publishes the statistics annually through surveys of school bus drivers who report conditions like time of day, direction of travel and location of the lane in which the vehicle passed in relation to the school bus.
In Indian River County with a 59-bus fleet, school bus drivers reported 29 instances of illegal passing; St. Lucie, with a 302-bus fleet, reported 35; and Martin County, with a 62-bus fleet, reported 113 instances of illegal passing.
Although it doesn’t specify under what circumstances crashes occurred, whether moving or while stopped, according to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, there have been 101 crashes involving school buses across the Treasure Coast, so far this year.
Of those, eight crashes occurred in Indian River County, 80 in St. Lucie County and 13 in Martin County.
The state department that collects crash data also houses the Florida Highway Patrol and is the state authority designated to oversee and enforce all rules and regulation of vehicles and safety enforcement for drivers on state roads.
A page on its website designated with information about “school bus safety” outlines the correct course of action for drivers encountering stopped school buses, which essentially states that under every road condition, drivers are required by state law to stop for stopped school buses.
On two-lane highways all traffic in both directions stops and on multi-lane highways with only a paved median separating lanes of travel, traffic in both directions stops, as well.
The only exception exists with divided highways where lanes of opposite direction of travel are separated by a raised barrier or unpaved median at least 5 feet wide except in one scenario involving a divided highway.
In this scenario only, drivers in the opposite lane of travel as the bus are not required to stop, however, these motorists “must proceed with caution” by slowing and watching for students leaving or entering the bus, according to state highway authorities.
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Corey Arwood is a breaking news reporter for TCPalm. Follow Corey on Twitter @coreyarwood, or reach him by phone at 772-978-2246.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Is it ever legal to pass a stopped school bus?
Reporting by Corey Arwood, Treasure Coast Newspapers / Treasure Coast Newspapers
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