Only an idiot would drive on the sidewalkAP Photo/Tony Dejak

We're going to try and refrain from saying "only in America", but it's hard not to with this story.

An American lady who drove up a pavement to get round a stationary school bus has been punished not with penalty points or a fine, but something much worse.

She's been ordered to stand in public holding a sign declaring she is an idiot.

Shena Hardin was caught driving around the bus which was unloading children in Cleveland, Ohio.

But the judge who sentenced her now plans to personally supervise the second day of the punishment after being unsatisfied with Hardin's attitude on the first day.

Judge Pinkey Carr had ordered her to spend part of two mornings holding a sign that said: "Only an idiot would drive on the sidewalk to avoid a school bus."

Hardin puffed on a cigarette, wore headphones and ignored passers-by while standing with the sign on a street corner on her first day.

The judge said she felt Hardin was not sufficiently holding up the sign and was "missing the point."

Lisa Kelley, whose nine-year-old daughter uses the bus that Hardin had been passing, said the sentence fitted the crime.

"She's an idiot, just like her sign says," one passer-by said as she watched Hardin lean against a fence, her head down and her eyes hidden by dark glasses.

"She did this almost every day last year. She won't stop laughing. She's not remorseful, she laughed at every court appearance. She's still laughing, so she needs to be humiliated like this."

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