The Texas Department of Public Safety is using National School Bus Safety Week, which runs from Oct. 19 through Oct. 23, to remind drivers when the law requires them to stop for a school bus.
The rule turns on how the road is built. Citing Section 545.066 of the Texas Transportation Code, DPS says that on a highway without a concrete barrier or grassy median, drivers headed in both directions must stop when a school bus has its red lights flashing or its stop arm out.
Where a concrete barrier or a grassy median separates the lanes, only traffic on the bus's side of the road has to stop.
Once stopped, drivers are to stay put until the bus starts moving again, the red lights stop flashing or the stop arm folds back, the agency said.
"Every child deserves to arrive at school and return home safely," Bryan Rippee, chief of the Texas Highway Patrol, said in the release. He said drivers who see the lights and stop arm should assume children may be crossing.
The numbers behind the campaign
DPS pointed to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration figures showing 1,069 people killed in 962 fatal crashes involving school buses nationwide from 2015 through 2024, an average of 107 deaths a year. Over the same decade, 204 school-age children died in such crashes, including 77 who were on foot and 39 who were riding the bus.
NHTSA also counted 63 deaths from 2000 through 2024 in crashes involving drivers who illegally passed a stopped school bus, according to the release.
