49-915. SCHOOL BUSES — VISUAL SIGNAL. (1) Every school bus shall, in addition to any other equipment and distinctive markings required by this title, be equipped with signal lamps mounted as high and as widely spaced laterally as practicable, which shall display to the front two (2) alternately flashing red lights located at the same level and to the rear two (2) alternately flashing red lights located at the same level. These lights shall be visible at five hundred (500) feet in normal sunlight.

(2) Any school bus shall, in addition to the lights required by subsection (1), be equipped with yellow signal lamps mounted near each of the four (4) red lamps and at the same level, but closer to the vertical centerline of the bus, which shall display two (2) alternately flashing yellow lights to the front and two (2) alternately flashing yellow lights to the rear. These lights shall be visible at five hundred (500) feet in normal sunlight. These lights shall be displayed by the school bus driver at least two hundred (200) feet before every stop at which the alternately flashing red lights required by subsection (1) will be actuated.

(3) Every school bus shall be equipped with a semaphore stop arm which shall be a flat eighteen (18) inch octagon exclusive of brackets for mounting, with reflectorized material on both sides, be red with a silver white border, and have a legend reading "stop" six (6) inches high with three-quarter (3/4) inch wide silver white letters, mounted outside the bus on the left side opposite driver’s seat and have a driver-controlled mechanism. Flashing lamps in the stop arm may be connected to the alternating red flashing signal lamp circuits. The stop arm signal may be vacuum, electric, air or manually controlled.

History:

[49-915, added 1988, ch. 265, sec. 241, p. 695.]