School Days

I am a School Bus Driver, and have been for many years.
I enjoy working with kids and I enjoy driving. I talk to many people that say that they could never drive a school bus because of having to put up with the kids or whatever.
However, I have found that if you let them know what they are and aren't allowed to do and stick with the rules, you will have very few problems.
One of the biggest problems that I have encountered is other motorists.
Let's face it, no one wants to be behind a slow moving School Bus that is going to be stopping every few blocks.
Believe it or not, that bus doesn't necessarily want you to have to stop that often either. However on some roads it just isn't safe to pass a bus or for the bus to pull over for you to pass it.
That driver has the safety of every child on that bus to consider, which may be up to about 65 kids or more. That driver has spent many hours in training and has to attend Safety meetings once a month in order to maintain their license to drive that bus.
So, if you are ever around a bus, don't be this guy....

and go speeding by.....
or when you see this sign....

slow down and be ready to stop...
It just may be that the driver will wave you by before he/she opens the door, but if they don't...remember...the safety of the child is the main concern on that driver's mind, not the fact that you are running late for work or are in a hurry to be where you are going!

Stories

This happened to me a while ago (10/22/97)....
I was taking a busload of high school and middle school students home from school. As I crossed an intersection a small sports car sped around the bus, (in a no passing zone) and put on their brakes. My first thought was that he didn't like how slow I was going because my bus loses speed on hills which we had just gone over quite a few.
But then he came to a stop in the middle of the hiway (two lane) blocking traffic. The two men in the car came back to the bus and wanted me to let them in. THERE WAS NO WAY THAT I WAS GONNA OPEN MY DOOR TO TWO TOTAL STRANGERS!!! In the meantime I was on the radio to my dispatcher letting him know I might need assistance.
I motioned for them to come to my window to talk to me. They told me that some of the kids in the back of the bus had been flipping them off as we were going down the Hiway and that they wanted the kids off the bus so they could do it to their faces.
These were not just other High School Students, these were grown men. One was about 30 and the other was about 45.
Did they actually believe that I was gonna open my door and let them assault some 15 year old students???
How could they be so childish as to even let something like this get under their skin so bad???
As it all turned out, the girl that had been flipping them off had to pay a fine and they did too...so everyone got what they deserved for their behavior in this!!
So kids...don't flip off or moon the cars behind the bus!!! You could end up paying a fine for it!

Kids...you gotta love 'em

It never ceases to amaze me, the things that kids come up with. I will find all kinds of evidence that a child has been eating on the bus, including 4 or 5 others telling me that they saw them eating, and when I confront the child...they say, "I wasn't eating candy on the bus"...this happened on Halloween...
I have assigned seats on my Elementary Bus Run. When the kids boarded the bus at the school to go home, I made an announcement that they had to wait till they got home to eat their candy (because I knew they had probably already had tons of sweets at their parties). So you can imagine how shocked I was when I went to check the bus after the run and find, all over the floor at one seat, empty treat bags, candy wrappers, chip bags, etc....When I confronted the two 5th grade girls on Monday morning about the trash I found at their seats, they both flatly denied having eaten on the bus. The first thing that I asked them both as they boarded that morning was,"were you in your assigned seat Halloween?", to which they both replied "yes".
When we arrived at the school I confronted them about all the trash on the floor...I still chuckle to myself to think that kids think we adults are really so dumb as to believe their ever so obvious lies...
Well, you are probably wondering what I did??? Well, at first I told them that someone was obviously lying to me...then I had them clean up the mess, and let them know that I would not put up with anymore lies, that they would be moved to the front of the bus if I found anymore trash back there (I do have a trash can on the bus). And so far, I have found no more...

MORE TO COME