Schoolbus transportation: schoolbus stops.

(1) Existing law requires the driver of a schoolbus to activate a flashing amber light warning system on the approach to a schoolbus stop where pupils are loading or unloading from the schoolbus and to operate flashing red signal lights and a stop signal arm at all times when the schoolbus is stopped for the purpose of loading or unloading pupils. Existing law also requires a schoolbus driver to load or unload pupils only at a schoolbus stop designated for pupils by the school district superintendent or authorized by the superintendent for school activity trips. This bill would also authorize the director, head, or principal of a private school to designate schoolbus stops for loading or unloading pupils or for school activity trips. Existing law prohibits a schoolbus driver from activating the amber warning light system or the flashing red signal lights and stop signal arm at a location determined by a school district, with the approval of the Department of the California Highway Patrol, to present a traffic or safety hazard. This bill would also make this prohibition applicable to locations determined by private schools to present a traffic or safety hazard. (2) Existing law prohibits any person from stopping, parking, or leaving a vehicle standing, among other places, on a crosswalk, except for a bus engaged as a common carrier or a taxicab stopped for the purpose of loading or unloading passengers, pursuant to a city ordinance. Existing law authorizes a transit system and a school district to enter into an agreement, by ordinance, for the loading or unloading of passengers alongside curb spaces designated for the loading or unloading of passengers of the transit system buses. This bill would authorize a transit system to enter into an agreement with a private school for the same purposes. The bill would also prohibit a schoolbus stop at a location otherwise prohibited by law, and other specified locations, without the approval of, and authorization by, the Department of the California Highway Patrol. (3) Existing law authorizes the governing board of a school district to designate a schoolbus stop at a place where there is not a clear view of the stop from a distance of 200 feet in each direction along a highway, if it is necessary for the safety of pupils being transported to and from schools, and the stop is authorized and approved by the Department of the California Highway Patrol. This bill would require, where there is not a clear view of a schoolbus stop from a distance of 200 feet in each direction along a highway, or where there is not a clear view of a schoolbus stop from 500 feet in each direction along the main portion of a highway and the speed limit is more than 25 miles per hour, that the stop may only be authorized annually by the Department of the California Highway Patrol upon the request of a school district superintendent or the director, head, or principal of a private school.