Some of us might remember when those retractable stop signs were installed on our elementary school bus. It was an effort to prevent impatient drivers from swerving around the bus and possibly hitting us kids as we were crossing the street. Who knew that two decades or so later, we’d still need similar safeguards as adults?

According to MPD, the safety of people getting on and off Metrobuses has been a “particular concern” lately, as the level of pedestrian deaths in 2006 has already exceeded the number for all of 2005. Beginning this month, a recently-passed D.C. Council law will prohibit drivers from passing stopped buses on the left and pulling around the front to make a right turn. Drivers who want to turn right must merge right or stay behind the bus and wait. The idea is to prevent blind right turns in areas where there is a high concentration of pedestrians.

During December, MPD officers will only write warning tickets; beginning in January, violators will get at least a $100 fine. Of course, as with the much-vaunted cell-phone ban and other arcane D.C. traffic laws – yielding to pedestrians in a crosswalk, for instance – we’re not counting on many tickets ever actually being written.

Photo by jason202