I don’t drive that often, and I certainly don’t drive during the hours that buses take students to school—that’s way too early for me—nor even while they take them home. So, I’d say I have only actually seen a school bus on the street twice in the last eight years. One of those times, however, was a time when I barely noticed it.

I know the law. When I took the California driver’s exam, I remember answering confidently and correctly that one must never pass a school bus stopped to pick up or drop off students. Even if one hasn’t read the driver’s manual, the flashing stop sign that juts out from the side of the bus is a pretty clear signal.

Some time ago I was driving home at 7.30a, pre-caffeine. A few blocks from my house there was a bus pulled over, stop sign protruding, red lights flashing. Somehow I fail to notice the bus until I am beside it, when I stop suddenly, somewhat past the stop sign and in the oncoming lane. Certain that no students were in the street (but utterly shamed and helplessly frantic all the same), I continue to the next intersection, where I stop and, still within sight, give the bus driver time to take down my license plate.

All day I expected a cop to show up at my house. When he did not, I expected for sometime that a citation would arrive in the mail. I imagined I would be summoned to court, where I would have to admit to a jury of parents that I had endangered their children’s lives, pay a several hundred dollar fine and have my license suspended. None of these things, things that one might hope be done in a just society, happened. It seemed excessive to turn myself in; I doubted a police department would have even taken my confession seriously. Still, I felt that my sense of guilt and my vow to be more careful went some distance toward an equivalent justice.