The in basket: I came across a year-old inquiry from Ward Starring of Chico Way recently on the subject of school buses and whether they have to comply with the state law requiring vehicles delaying more than five others on a two-lane highway to pull over and let them pass.

He had been stuck behind Central Kitsap school bus No. 66 on Chico Way on April 30 last year, he wrote at the time, and he could see in his rear-view mirror that he was among at least two dozen drivers crawling behind the bus as it stopped and boarded children.

“That bus never once pulled to the shoulder to let traffic pass,” he said. It traveled all the way to the Newberry/Chico Way intersection, where it waited to turn. 

Previously, he’d often seen buses there pull over to let traffic go past, he said.

“Whether that was just a polite move or required by law, it reduced frustration from drivers who then had to contend with the almost impossible task of merging into traffic at the Newberry Hill/ Chico Way intersection,” he said.

The out basket: School buses are not exempted from that law, which reads “On a two-lane highway where passing is unsafe because of traffic in the opposite direction or other conditions, a slow moving vehicle, behind which five or more vehicles are formed in a line, shall turn off the roadway wherever sufficient area for a safe turn-out exists, in order to permit the vehicles following to proceed.”

It defines a slow vehicle as “one which is proceeding at a rate of speed less than the normal flow of traffic at the particular time and place.” Doing the speed limit isn’t a defense.

It’s a hard law to enforce, though the State Patrol lately has kicked off the vacation season with news releases reminding motorists, presumably motor home drivers mostly, of the law. There also is a discussion of it as regards traffic on newly busy, two-lane Highway 101 on Josh Farley’s Kitsap Crime and Justice blog on this Web site and printed in Tuesday’s Kitsap Sun.

Trooper Krista Hedstrom of the local State Patrol office says, “Although school buses are required by law to pull off and let traffic by, they also need to do so safely, especially considering they are transporting children. Drivers are reminded to please be patient when behind a school bus.  They may not always have a safe location to pull over.”  

The pull-off place must not only be safe, it has to be wide enough for the bus (or motor home or whatever) to get all its wheels outside the edge line. Parking with wheels over the edge line is an infraction, as is traveling slowly partly or fully on the shoulder.

There seem to be lots of places along Chico Way wide enough for a bus to pull over. This long after the fact, it may not be possible to determine who was driving the bus that day, but David Beil of CK schools’ community affairs office said he’ll pass the complaint on to the district’s transportation department.

The in basket: I found myself in an unfamiliar place Monday afternoon, though certainly it’s well-known to hundreds of our readers. I rarely use Central Valley Road near Fairgrounds Road, because of the school zones there, and don’t recall the last time I was there at school-closing time.

But Monday I wound up northbound on Central Valley approaching Fairgrounds Road about 3 p.m.

“What a zoo,” I remarked to myself, as the cars ahead of me barely moved while I could see the light was green and should have been moving traffic. I decided to count how many seconds elapsed between the light turning green again and my moving forward. I wondered if school children in the crosswalk were keeping turning traffic from moving, holding up everyone behind them, and whether it was a daily thing for drivers there.

Instead, I wound up counting the length of the green light because it turned yellow after only 10 seconds. Obviously, not many cars got through.

I asked the county if that’s normal behavior for that light.

The out basket: No, says Callene Abernathy of county public works. At least one citizen called in the same complaint Monday night and a signal technician found

that the signal was not operating correctly.  The technician did a temporary fix, she said, and others were to go out Tuesday to see what is wrong with the signal.

The in basket: Bunny Lee of Bremerton asks about the differences in what is permitted westbound on Sixth and 11th streets in Bremerton. 

“If I come down Sixth Street to Warren,” she said, “driving toward downtown and the Manette Bridge, I can turn left or go straight ahead from the middle lane. At 11th, I can only turn left onto Warren and CANNOT go straight ahead to the Manette Bridge from that middle lane

“Why?” she asks. “There is no on-coming left turn lane so the traffic would not conflict. It just seems silly that the arrows do not allow drivers to go straight ahead at 11th and Warren from that middle lane. 

“Of course, you can go into the far right lane and go straight ahead from there.  I just sometimes forget, so end up in that middle lane.”

The out basket: Both intersections operated the same way before Burwell Street was closed east of Warren for construction of the ferry tunnel. Then city traffic officials changed the restriction in the middle lane of westbound Sixth to allow either movement to compensate for the reduced access to downtown. 

The only explanation I have ever gotten for not allowing straight-ahead movements as well as left turns from the middle lane is that it contributes to rear-end accidents. I don’t recall being told why that would be true, and can’t figure it out on my own. It came from city traffic officials long since moved on. 

Larry Matel, the current traffic engineer who came to town just about the time the middle lane limitation was removed at Sixth Street, says only,”I am not aware of any problems at Sixth and Warren related to these lane assignments, but will request a traffic accident history from the Washington Department of Transportation to check.” 

He added that he expects the ability to got either straight or left from the middle lane of Sixth to be preserved after the tunnel is finished and Burwell reopens.

As for 11th and Warren, that intersection is scheduled for a revision “to accommodate a longer right-turn lane for southbound Warren Avenue traffic to turn right at 11th. This should reduce long backups on southbound Warren at various times of the day.” he said.

“We can look at the request for a similar lane assignment on 11th during this project’s development,” he said.

While the disparity is curious, I can’t say I’ve ever seen so much straight-ahead traffic at either intersection that the right lane was insufficient. I would think it would take something that stopped a right turner from making his turn with straight-ahead traffic trapped behind him to actually inconvenience anyone.