6th child dies after Chattanooga bus crash; NTSB says bus not on designated route

That's all I can do.
My condolences to the families - for the children: I hope it was relatively quick and painless. For the driver: I hope you suffer every demon which thinks your soul is worth scraping, as slow and painfully as possible.

 

This tragedy has all the ear-mark of neglegence from the school system. This driver was involved in at least one preventable in the previous 12 months. Reportedly, families have complained about questionable behavior on other occasions. Sad.

 

One question if you have complained about the driver why allow your kids to ride the bus he drives? Very sad situation and not trying to defend driver. But if you have complaints about driver why are your kids still on his bus? Sad situation for all involved but in the end they put the kids on the bus with a driver they had complained about.

 

pay higher taxes, bus driver gets paid more, get better drivers. or drive your kid to school yourself. sounds simple to me

 

This whole deal is just terrible.

 

No sir. Money is the root problem in this. Throwing more money at this won't fix it, but make things worse.

How so?

The school system is incredibly corrupt. Unbelievably corrupt. Years ago, a school superintendent by the name of Jesse Register was hired. He came over from some school system in the Carolinas after bankrupting the system. He was hired to be the school superintendent in Chattanooga. The very first thing that he and the assistant supers did was vote themselves a raise. Then they don't have enough funds to cover the schools. So city council has to raise taxes. Then the supers get another raise. Then higher taxes. Then another raise. Then higher taxes. Then another raise. See how this works?

FINALLY, a mayor was elected who didn't like what was going on. Register told the city council that they didn't have enough money to run the buses. The new mayor asked why not when they had enough money the year before. Register warned the mayor that if they didn't have the funds, middle school buses would not be running at the beginning of the school year. The mayor told Register that if the middle school buses did not run at the beginning of the school year, Mr Register would be out of a job. Miraculously, funds appeared for the middle school buses. And Mr Register was fired.

But there is a happy ending in all of this...Mr Register was picked up by the city of Nashville to be their school superintendent. Amazing how that works.

Yeah, it's always tragic when children get killed, but problems like these start at a much higher level than the bus driver. Solution? More regulations and cattle prods and handholding? Good idea. Works well for the trucking industry. Raise taxes and throw more money at the school system? Mr Register loves that type of thinking.

"Six, do you have a solution?"

I do. The same problem with cars is the same problem with buses and the same problem with trucks. Idiots are being issued drivers license. You would think that a "drivers license" would be an indication that a person can DRIVE. There is a difference between driving and holding a steeringwheel.
Start at the beginning. The current DL test should be the SWH test. In order to get a DL, a SWH should be required to complete a driving test like EVOC. In order to be a trucker or bus driver or taxi driver (F endorsement), you have to complete the EVOC. No DL, no interstate travel, no driving job of any sort. Period. Harsh? Yeah, but you wouldn't have to worry about your kids. This jack wad should have never been behind the wheel of a bus.

"Six, what do you think of seatbelts on a schoolbus?"

Not a good idea. In a fire, an entire bus load of young kids would be killed. I did a post awhile back about a 20 year old girl wiping out, wrecking and flipping a pickup, and the truck catching fire. Grown men couldn't get the seatbelts off 1 girl. And the unbelievable thing about it was, the majority of people standing around were filming with their phones. I guess if you sissies don't have anything to put on Facebook, life isn't worth living for you. Point is, they couldn't get her seatbelt off. And that was just one person. I'm an old rescue guy. I still carry my tools for the trade in my truck. And my blade will cut a seatbelt like butter. But can you imagine 40 kids on a bus with a fire? Bad idea.

 

Are you from Chattanooga also? If not, you know more about local politics here than most of the locals.

 

And this leads to other questions. Was this bus being used in "forced bussing?" I don't know if they even do this anymore.
But my thoughts on this are if this was forced bussing, then are the kid's parents too poor to be able to drive their own kids to school, while at the same time being forced to send their kids to a school across town?
As I said, I don't even know if this is still being done for segregation purposes. Nor do I know anything about that school district.
What I do know, is that the county school district where I live, is bussing Highschool kids half way across the county, to a new school that was recently built. These kids are from a small, rural town, where there isn't enough votes to make the officials pay any attention to them.
The reason for bussing the kids? All THREE of the high-schools that are closer, are already overcrowded, and this new school was not being used to capacity!

 

Not the school system. The contracted bus company. The school system is no more responsible for this than walmart is when swift wrecks while carrying a walmart load.