Q: The back of transit buses have a flashing yellow light and a “Please Yield” sign, so I yield for them when they are pulling out of bus stops, but I see that many drivers do not. Is the “Please Yield” a request for drivers to be polite, or is it the law?
A: You don’t see a lot of “please” in the legal code, do you? For the parents reading this, have you used please in a sentence when your child didn’t have the option of refusing? Like, you say, “Please clean your room,” but what you mean is, “You will clean your room, or I’m not driving you to Ben’s birthday party, and there’s going to be a bouncy house there.” You say please because you want your kid to like you, but you still have an expected behavior and a consequence for disregarding it.
That’s what that “Please Yield” sign is like. The request is polite, but the law behind it is real. The Revised Code of Washington states, “The driver of a vehicle shall yield the right-of-way to a transit vehicle traveling in the same direction that has signalled and is reentering the traffic flow.” While the sign says “please,” the law says “shall.” For the folks interested in legal grammar (now I’m really narrowing my audience) shall is an imperative command; it indicates that certain actions are mandatory, not permissive.
Yes, that’s a special privilege given to bus drivers that we don’t get when we’re driving our cars. For the rest of us, the law requires that before pulling into the roadway we must make sure that “such movement can be made with reasonable safety.” That law, and several others, put the primary responsibility for safety on the driver who is entering or changing lanes. Simply, we must yield to vehicles already on the road.
Some people might think that’s unfair, or a double-standard. I think of it as more of a practical consideration. When I drive somewhere, the only time I’m pulling into or off of the roadway is at the start and end of the trip. Meanwhile, bus drivers spend about 20 percent of their time at bus stops – sometimes more. I just looked up a random bus route, and it had 35 stops in 35 minutes. That’s a lot of pulling back into traffic with a 40-foot-long vehicle, and merging is a maneuver prone to conflicts. When we yield to buses it keeps the route times more consistent, and more importantly (from my perspective), it helps prevent crashes.
Part of the law on yielding to buses includes the requirement that bus drivers signal their intention. Using the turn signal does not give bus drivers a free pass to carelessly pull into the lane. The second half of the law states that bus drivers have to drive “with due regard for the safety of all persons using the roadway.” Mostly I brought this up to point out that it’s also true for non-transit drivers. A turn signal doesn’t guarantee you a spot where you want to go; it lets other drivers know your intention. I’m talking to you, guy in the gray sedan that turned your signal on simultaneously with changing lanes and never once looked back to see that there was a car where you were headed.
One more thing: thank you for yielding to buses, even when you weren’t sure if it was required by law. Obeying the law is great (obviously), but if you really want to make someone’s day out on the road, kindness is where it’s at.
If I am traveling on a multi-lane road and see a bus ahead, I will try to switch to the left lane to give the bus an all clear back into traffic. It’s kind of like on the interstate when you see someone trying to merge on, and you move over to accomodate them even though you have the right-of-way. Again, a little kindness goes a long way.