It happens all the time—a school bus slows down to pick kids up at a bus stop, and a car comes whooshing past the bus, speeding because they’re in a hurry. Unfortunately, this kind of carelessness has led to many accidents and fatalities in the U.S. In a surveillance video that has now gone viral, it captures a car as the driver speeds past school bus, nearly striking a mother and her two children.

Thanks to the mom’s quick thinking, all three of them remained safe. But things could have turned out differently in just a split second, due to the car passing the school bus so dangerously. Maryland resident and mom Tomasa Mejia took her three boys out to their bus stop shortly before 8 a.m. last Friday.

As the four stepped off the curb to enter the bus, the car came speeding toward them. It’s a heart-stopping moment, to be sure.

The surveillance video was captured from the Mejia’s home, and showed a silver car pass the bus from behind on its right side; the same location where the Mejias had almost walked into the street.

“Thank God, we were all holding hands,” Mejia tells WUSA9 News. “People, they’re just not respecting anything.”

The driver never stopped.

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The Mejia family told WUSA9 similar incidents have happened in the past along the same road where they live. They said people often speed down the road and use a non-traffic lane to pass other vehicles.

“This is not the first time that this has happened and that is why we decided to have a camera automatically turn to their stop every morning,” said Tomasa’s husband David Mejia. “The number of cars constantly speeding makes this part of Addison Road really dangerous because cars try to pass using the right turn lane. We have lived in this address for 11 years and have personally seen many accidents because of people speeding in the right turn lane.”

In 2018, in the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island, drivers who don’t stop for a school bus will lose their license for three months and could face a fine of up to $5,000.

In the U.S., most states carry a fine for drivers who illegally pass a school bus.

In the United States, multiple tragedies in communities all over the country occur due to people illegally passing school buses. Three siblings were struck and killed in Indiana in 2018 while boarding their school bus after a driver in a pick-up truck failed to obey traffic laws and stop behind the bus. A nine-year-old girl and her six-year-old twin brothers lost their lives because of one reckless driver.

Related: This viral video has parents everywhere double-checking car seats

That same year, a seven-year-old boy in Pennsylvania was waiting at his school bus stop when he was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver. A nine-year-old boy in Mississippi was also killed as he crossed a highway to catch his school bus.

In November 2022, an 11th grade girl hit by an oncoming car while trying to board her York County school bus. She died a few days later.

While Mejia is hoping safety issues on the road in question get resolved, she has one request who sped past her family Friday: slow down.

“These were my kids, but what if it were his, you know?” she said.