When To Stop For A School Bus: Know The Law In Illinois

School buses have already or will soon join the normal mix of morning and afternoon traffic on Illinois streets and highways.

Knowing stop arm laws — and following them — can reduce the number of kids killed or injured every year in America getting on or off the school bus, transportation safety officials say.

Every year, nearly 500,000 school buses take about 25 million elementary through high school students to and from school, traveling about 5.7 million miles in a single school year. These kids are 70 times more likely to arrive at school alive than those students who get to school by other means, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

However, the National Transportation Safety Board noted on its website, “far too many drivers simply choose to ignore the law for their own convenience and put children at risk.”

What Illinois Laws Say

In Illinois, passing a school bus on a two-lane, two-way roadway is not allowed when a school bus has stopped to load or discharge passengers.

A vehicle is not required to stop for a school bus when both vehicles are on a four-lane roadway and the bus is stopped in the opposite direction from which a driver is traveling.
Any other time, drivers must stop before meeting or passing a school bus that is stopped and loading or unloading passengers. This includes:

• Any two-lane roadway, in rural areas and within city limits.
• Any roadway, highway or private road.
• Any parking lot located on school property.

A warning will be given by the school bus at least 100 feet (200 feet in rural areas) in advance of a stop. The bus driver will flash lights on the front and rear of the bus. The school bus stop signal arm will be extended after the school bus has come to a complete stop. When approaching a school bus from the opposite direction, you must come to a complete stop and remain stopped until the stop signal arm is no longer extended and the flashing lights are turned off or the school bus driver signals vehicles to pass.

While all 50 states and the District of Columbia make it illegal to pass a stopped school bus with its red flashing lights active and stop arm required, at least 31 states have school bus stop-arm camera laws to allow for cameras to record illegal passing, according to a National Conference of State Legislatures tally last updated in October 2025 and Kentucky legislation enacted this year.

In Illinois, municipalities or counties are authorized to create an authorized law enforcement system for the purpose of "catching violators of state and local laws involving approaching, overtaking or passing a school bus." There are set conditions on the type and number of images that can be taken, how they are to be stored, required notifications for the public and ways for people to challenge a violation issued.

The images are confidential, state law dictates, and school districts or municipalities must give public notice of their school bus monitoring.

School Bus Fatalities In Illinois

In 2024, the most recent year for which National Highway Traffic Administration data is available, 110 people died nationwide in school bus-related accidents, down 14 percent from 128 in 2023, according to the National Safety Council.

Nine of those deaths were in Illinois, including:

• On March 11, 2024, a school bus collided with a semi in rural Rushville, Illinois, killing both drivers and three of the bus passengers. The bus driver was a 57-year-old local woman. The passengers were a 5-year-old girl and two 3-year-old boys.
• On May 6, 2024, a 44-year-old woman driver of a school bus died in a crash.
• On May 15, 2024, a 50-year-old man driving another type of vehicle died in a daytime crash with a school bus.
• On Sept. 1, 2024, a 41-year-old woman driving another type of vehicle died in a nighttime crash with a school bus.
• On Oct. 10, 2024, a 34-year-old man driving another type of vehicle died in a daytime crash with a school bus.

Not all of the fatalities in 2024 were the result of a motorist’s failure to follow school bus stop arm laws. However, in most cases when children are injured or killed, it’s when the bus is stopped, the lights are flashing, and the stop arm is extended, according to safety experts.

Stop Arm Violations In Illinois

In its latest national survey taken in April 2026, the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services estimated about 38.4 million illegal school-bus passings last school year. Rather than reflecting actual law enforcement citations, this number is a national projection derived from a single-day tally of motorists in 40 states who failed to stop for school buses.

In Illinois, of 5,981 participating drivers, 2,309 were observed passing illegally: 1,061 in the morning, 126 mid-day, and 1,122 in the afternoon/evening. Of those that passed illegally, 1,487 passed from the front, and 822 from the rear; 2,112 passed on the left, and 197 on the right.

More than 101,000 school bus drivers in 39 states and Washington, D.C., reported 56,024 illegal passings in a single day during the 2025-26 school year. Those drivers represented about 26 percent of the nation’s school bus drivers. NASDPTS extrapolated the results to an estimated 213,800 illegal passings per school day, or more than 38.4 million over an 180-day school year.

That estimate is down from 39.3 million in 2024-25 and 45.2 million in 2023-24, marking a second straight annual decline.

About 51 percent of the reported violations happened on afternoon routes, nearly 46 percent during morning routes, and about 3 percent at midday. Nearly 64 percent of vehicles passed from the front of the bus, while about 36 percent approached from behind.

Florida reported the most violations, followed by California, Georgia and Texas. Importantly, those state totals aren’t clean comparisons because participation varied, and the survey did not adjust for factors such as traffic volume, route mileage, number of stops or road type, according to the bus drivers’ group.

• Related: School Drop-Off Lane Chaos Puts Children At Risk: Block Talk