That law exists for the express purpose of giving drivers ample time and opportunity to stop in a situation where school children may cross unexpectedly to avoid the need for split-second decision making to avert known disaster. Being unable to handle school bus stop signs predictably results in the outcome they were literally invented to avoid.
Stopping when you do not have to is not as bad as not stopping when you do have to, but it does increase the chances of an accident, so ideally self-driving cars should get both stopping and not stopping right.
In my state, Washington, the rules are:
1. If you are traveling in the same direction as the bus you must stop.
2. If you are traveling in the opposite direction and the road has only two lines and the lanes are not separated by a median you must stop.
3. If you are traveling in the opposite direction and has two lanes separated by a median, or it has three or more lanes, you do not have to stop.
I believe the reason that opposite direction traffic is not required to stop if there is a median or there are at least three lanes is that the law requires that school bus stops be placed such that no children using them will have to cross the bus stop's street except when that is a two lane street with no median.
Veserv•7mo ago