Buses and a Flood

Spectator

By Stephen Tuttle | Sept. 12, 2026

There were many things uniquely American our foreign guests noticed when they visited during the World Cup this summer. Free refills, food portion sizes, air conditioning everywhere, and the kindness and friendliness of Americans all impressed. But they were absolutely obsessed with yellow school buses. They thought they were just movie props. They should be here now.

With schools back in session, visitors would discover those buses have gone from being an oddity you saw occasionally in July to an ubiquitous part of our roadway landscapes in September.

Public school buses are the largest mass transit system in the country, with a stunning 480,000 buses transporting 26 million students every school day while traveling tens of millions of miles, according to the New York School Bus Contractor Association.

Here in Michigan, according to the State of Michigan School Bus Inspection system, we have 17,000 buses carrying 800,000 students 10 million miles every school day. In many rural areas, school buses are the only viable alternatives for students.

Locally, the Traverse City Area Public School system (TCAPS), the largest school district in northern Michigan, currently operates 100 buses carrying 71 or 77 students each, a total of 6,000 daily riders. Those buses cover 300 square miles, make 3,000 stops, and roam about 7,000 miles a day.

All of that data should remind us that buses are once again on the road and we, once again, must respect them in order to protect our children who ride them. Some of us don’t do a very good job.

The rules are pretty simple: when a school bus is stopped to pick up or drop off children, with their red lights flashing and the “Stop” arm extended, traffic in both directions MUST stop. You must stop behind the bus and you must stop approaching the bus. These are not just gentle suggestions but the law taken very, very seriously by local law enforcement. (The only exception is if you are approaching on a divided highway with a raised median or if a law enforcement officer directing traffic indicates you should pass.)

In a May 2025 survey, 3,153 Michigan school bus drivers reported 2,207 illegal vehicle passes while their bus was stopped in a single day. It’s not as if these violations are without consequence; 54 accidents involving stopped school buses with lights flashing and “stop” arm out resulted in 26 serious injuries and one fatality in Michigan last year, all easily avoided.

Many, if not most, of these buses now have high resolution cameras in the front, back, and on the stop arm. They will capture a photo or video of your illegal behavior, and you will be reported to local authorities. First offense fines range from $100 to $500, up to 100 hours of community service all to be served at a school, and it’s a violation that will add three points to your driver’s license. All of the penalties are doubled if it happens in a school zone. And, God forbid, this irresponsible behavior actually injures a child, you could face thousands in fines and up to a year in jail. Cause a death and you’ll be heading to prison for up to 15 years.

Yes, it can be a bit frustrating getting behind one of these behemoths and their frequent stops. But the drivers will pull over and let traffic by whenever it is safe to do so with just their orange caution lights on.

There is no meeting so important, no text so vital, nothing so critical that any of us should be willing to risk the lives of school-bus-riding children. Just stop—the alternative is not worth it for anybody.

A world away, we’re watching another avoidable tragedy unfold. By now most of us have seen the horrific video of the cataclysmic flood on the China-Nepal border. The front edge of a glacier collapsed, took a part of the mountain it was on with it, and created a debris dam on the river below. When that dam finally burst, minutes of Hell in the form of a 100-foot high, 100-mile-per-hour wall of boulders, mud, and water erased everything in its path, including buildings and substantial dams. As of this writing, 1,400 dead have been reported and more than 5,000 are still missing.

We mention this because it is clearly a result of climate change. Glacial calving is not a new phenomenon, but it used to occur as the glacier progressed and now it occurs as glaciers dramatically retreat. The permafrost which served as a glue holding parts of the mountain together becomes exposed and melts enough to break the bonds.

Receding glaciers calving huge chunks of their front edges are an ongoing phenomenon. Permafrost is melting in multiple locations causing multiple problems and getting worse. Yet, we keep right on drilling, mining and burning when we could avoid it all.