A Cleveland woman puffed on a cigarette, wore headphones and ignored passersby and crowds of reporters as she stood for an hour yesterday by order of a judge holding a sign that said, "Only an idiot would drive on the sidewalk to avoid a school bus."
The judge had ordered 32-year-old Shena Hardin to serve the highly public sentence yesterday and today after she was caught on camera driving on a footpath to pass a school bus that was unloading children.
She arrived bundled up against the 1C cold at the intersection near downtown Cleveland, in Ohio. Satellite TV trucks streamed the event live.
Hardin's licence was suspended for 30 days and she was ordered to pay US$250 ($305) in court costs.
Lisa Kelley, whose 9-year-old daughter boards the bus that Hardin had been passing on the footpath, said the sentence fitted the crime.