School bus relief driver

Daily there are 480,000 school busses on the road in the US compared with 96,000 transit buses and 35,000 commercial buses and 7,400 airplanes.

School buses have a strong safety record but there is room to improve.

When you have 26,000,000 students riding daily rare events happen all the time.

 

I'm sorry but I am going to reject this comment. I have too many friends that are/were bus drivers and all have told me much differently. Their largest complaint is the district will not back me up. Some (thankfully not all) of the children will make it their lives work to get rid of you! For example, right here in a Hampton roads school district in I think it was the 2017-2018 school year. A teenager exited the safety door. The driver reported this teen and asked the district to ban him off the bus. In reply, this bus driver was "written up" because he was not controlling the kids. The very next day this teen did it again.

I will agree that there are a lot of districts where the kids behave, however, there are some districts like this one I just spoke of that can't keep a driver on the route. The problem is NOT the driver's personality or their ability to control their emotions. The problem is YOU will not tell Johnny Icantdonowrong he is wrong, to do so will get you targetted to get fired. I spent some time reading the back story on that youtube link I posted. I am not attempting to interject race into this subject because all involved were the same race. For a school bus driver to be attacked like this is a shame! If that driver had been my wife? I would most likely be in jail by now on my way to prison.

In respect of some adults who lack the proper patience to operate a school bus I am in total agreement with your comment. However, this is not the real dynamic most "problem" routes are operating under.

 

Those school buses are running maybe 7 hours a day on average 5 days a week and are only running close to 180 to 190 days a year on average. RTA buses are going in some cases 18 to 20 hours a day 7 days a week 52 weeks a year and Commercial buses are 24/7. While the numbers favor the school buses I would love to see the actual miles each category travels a week. I have a suspicion these miles are not that far apart

Buses, in general, have good safety records. That is a correct statement. Question? How can a rare event happen all the time?

 

I can bet you that happens daily.

 

I went to a bad high school here in NJ. One year, I had a bus driver named Vanessa. Vanessa was born and raised in Newark and that is where she lived all her life.

We got along great. I was a suburban delinquent, she would tell stories of her children growing up in the hood as gangbangers and how she couldn't wait to retire from driving so she could get back to smoking weed.

One day she told me the story about the kid she beat up. Yes, she beat up a kid. She stomped the ever living crap out of a kid on her bus route. She then stopped at a deli on her way to the school and bought ice cream for all the other kids. When they got to school, nobody would snitch and she stayed happily employed.

My point is: OP, as long as you can keep the crazy under wraps, you're good to go! The pay sucks though.

 

On a per mile basis, the school bus is the safest mode of transport for students. Have to google it to see the actual miles....have looked at the charts in the past.
There has not been a student death on a school bus in the past 3 years in the usa. The last death was in TN when a bus driver crashed and flipped the bus on purpose.

The biggest danger to students is the waiting area to board the bus....about 7 or 8 deaths per year. 4 wheelers run the bus red lights on either side of the bus and kill a kid.

 

Just to be fair, it is not just school bus drivers. To pick on just school bus situations is wrong. These problems are systemic in nature and are not going to be solved by the same old crap!

It is teachers!


It is High School Game officials!


It is school admins!

 

I can't dispute what you are stating. I am in total agreement that MODE of travel is the safest according to the stats. My argument is the environment the bus drivers are exposed to. Some situations it's great! Some situations it's not so great.

 

Most 5th grade boys have a phone and will record you....before cell phones the driver could make physical contact to a point....not anymore. I always assumed I was being recorded when I was on the bus.
Except once when bubba didn’t have his phone and I asked him where it was.....he said his dad had it. I asked why.....he said because he kicked his younger sister. Yeah, that is bubba. Bubba had 6 write ups from me in one year, and never got expelled from the bus.....but he didn’t kick or hit anyone on the bus. The teachers had to put up with some of these kids for 7 hours a day, but I only had them for 20 minutes.....those poor teachers!

A few times when waiting to unload in the school yard, I would take a kid off the bus and talk to him by the door, so other kids could not record me. My boss told me I could not get off the bus, with students on the bus. So I guess I could sit on the bottom step with the door open and the kid standing on the ground in front of me.....but at that point I didn’t care anymore.

I found that a private conversation with a kid made it a more serious conversation, and I did not need physical contact to make my point.

 

I was fortunate that I never felt a fear of being attacked by a parent or student, but there were some students I kept a close eye on, and would not turn my back to them.

I had a group of 7th and 8th graders that were clearly anti-social, the girls worse than the boys. Once I told a girl to have a nice day, and she says, “don’t say that shlt to me”. I had a few confrontations with the boys, about seat assignment, one of the few decisionsthe driver gets to still make. They started to get off at the wrong stop once before I realized what they were doing, and the group of them walked down the street. Apparently someone called the cops on them. And my boss faults me for their surprise exit....I watched them closely when opening the door so they couldn’t do that again.
Under threat of me quitting, my boss gave me a new route with less problems.