Committee hears bill to clarify motorists’ obligations when school bus amber lights flash

LANSING — The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee heard testimony on House Bill 4214, a proposal to clarify how motorists must respond when a school bus activates its amber (yellow) warning lights.

Sponsor Representative Pauquette told the committee a May 2024 one-day survey of about 2,000 bus drivers documented roughly 1,300 illegal passes in a single day, including 46 on the buses’ right side. Witnesses said the current law discusses amber lights only as a preparatory warning and does not impose a legal duty to stop.

John Legas, a long-time school bus director from Berrien County, told the committee he has seen stop-arm violations grow and recounted a 2014 incident in which a child was struck after entering the street before a bus’s red lights activated. “With that scream from the bus driver, I heard the word stop arm violator. On this particular day, a child was struck by a motorist that disregarded the school bus amber warning lights while traveling at speeds of 55 miles per hour,” Legas said. After reviewing bus camera footage, he said law enforcement concluded the motorist had not “legally” done anything wrong because the vehicle’s amber lights, as defined in current law, had not yet converted to red.

Stephanie Nathan of the Berrien County Sheriff’s Office, who manages the county’s traffic unit, told lawmakers her office receives school-bus-passing referrals from districts and that enforcement is time-intensive. “So far this year, John here has sent me 37 school bus passings for this school year,” Nathan said. She described a multistep process prosecutors require to issue citations — identify the driver, contact and confirm identity, obtain prosecutor approval — which she said can take about three hours per incident and discourages enforcement.

Committee members questioned whether technological fixes, additional signage or driver education could reduce illegal passes. Members also asked whether the red lights could be configured to activate earlier; witnesses said other states use door-activated switches that make red activation occur earlier, but that current Michigan equipment and law do not allow that without hardware and statutory changes.

Why it matters: Witnesses and the bill’s sponsor said ambiguity around amber warning lights creates a safety gap for children boarding and leaving buses. The bill would give motorists clearer statutory guidance about how to treat flashing amber lights, supporters said; enforcement capacity and camera deployment in local districts were described as variable.

The committee did not take a final vote on HB 4214 during the hearing; several interested parties were read into the record as neutral or supportive.