O.T. School bus rant

My wife always complains that in the numerous branches of the company she works for the employees have no work ethic. Not too concerned with showing up on time or just letting work pile up with no sense of urgency. I used to see the same thing where I used to work mostly with the younger workers. Today I learned why.
I had to go out early this morning to do some shopping and I got to the junction where my community’s street meets the main road. The intersection was jammed with SUVs and other traffic slowly backing up waiting for the stopped school bus. So I’m waiting, watching, and waiting and watching…waiting and the bus has its flashers sometimes on sometimes off just sitting there. As I’m watching kids are filtering in from here and there at a relaxed pace. Each time the bus puts the flashers on. Then I realize that half of these breeders still have their kids in their SUVs and as they slowly filter out they just saunter toward the bus here and there with no sense of urgency. They are being trained from an early age. I had a good laugh out of it. I remember, as a youth, waiting at the bus stop with a bunch of kids and when the bus doors closed it just left even if you were running toward it. If you were late and missed the bus you headed home for the prerequisite beating before being driven to school.

Leave a kid behind now and you'd be looking for a new job.

Things ain't changed any, back in the early 60's when I rode the bus, there was these two places. Each had 4 kids, every morning it was a 5 minute wait for them to come out of the house, one at a time. When that one got seated, another one would come out. But going home, all four would get off at the same time.

I don't know where or how entitlement comes from, but that's what it's all about today. Where it surprises me is in town, where someone will saunter across the street, in the face of oncoming traffic, with an air of invincibility. Somehow I don't think that would work for me. I guess I just don't have the right attitude.

Yea, you're betting your life the driver isn't on a cell phone.

When I was a kid in school, if you lived within a certain distance of the school, you were supposed to walk.
A bus was not supposed to stop closer than one half mile between stops.
Now there is an elementary school down the road from our driveway and the parents cars are so thick, you can hardly get in the road twice a day.
People from the towns bring their kids out here in the country to this school.
Richard in NW SC

In my town the bus drivers are told they can't even honk! My boy started pre-school this year and the bus picks him up (comes to the door which is great, seeing as at the end of my drive is the little "shanty" that my dad built for me and my brother to wait in (really long driveway) but anyways my wife told them to honk if they're ever behind because sometimes they show up alittle early and the driver told her that they are not allowed to honk when waiting for children! I told her to hell them to put it in reverse for a second so she'd hear the back up beeper!

We had the same thing, but 5 or 6 kids. Bus driver would drive off if there wasn't another on the way by the time the last one was seated, and that would get them into shape for a week or two. But gradually back into the same old pattern.

I was a substitute bus driver while in college in 1968. They told me to have about a 4th grade girl sit in the seat behind me, to help with the route. High school kid was acting up on the afternoon route, so I quietly asked my assistant to tell me when we were about a half a mile from his place (a country route- pretty big farming country). She did, and I stopped the bus and kicked him off. He got mouthy, told me his old man would have my job. I replied that it wasn't much of a job anyhow, and he was welcome to it.

After we got underway again, my little assistant said "You'll never hear from his dad. He won't even tell him, or he'd get his hide tanned but good." Nice girl- I doubt she ever got her hide tanned, but she was well aware of the concept.

I miss the old days, when the community kind of worked together to get the kids raised.

No school buses in our area in ND back in the day. We walked a mile to the 1-room country school; for high school I drove 10 miles into town to get to school. I was always early for school; a girl that lived directly across the street was the last one to arrive to the assembly.

Well after all if you hit them some ambulance chaser lawyer will have everything you own.
And as a side result of this we all now have to have cars with flimsy plastic rounded bumpers that cost a small fortune so as to not hurt anyone you hit at up to like 35 MPH ? or something like that the law mandates it.

I remember there was a girl who would walk over a mile to get on the bus. Rarely would we wait for her. 2 girls later on the route, they could see us coming for a mile, Ralph would pull up and open the door, grandma would get out, walk around, let them out of the pick-up, give them each a hug, then they'd get on the bus.

When I was in school anyone who got dropped off, their ride would pull into the circle in front of the school, let them out, and be off. Before I moved west I dropped my stepsister off at school one morning. Now they require you to go in behind the building, drop them off in a certain area, then leave, all the while moving counter to the buses.

Gotta watch leaving McCook about 7AM going east. People take their kids out to the rest area to catch the bus to the school in Indianola. They'll do 50 to pass you in the 35, then do 45 once they get out of town into the 65.

when teaching and substitute driver I would have some little kid tell me where the stops were.I heard a little first grade kid tell another, "He is not very smart for a teacher, He does not even know where we live". Maybe he was right

Followed a bus this morning going to work, the bus stops at every driveway,even if it is 50 ft from the last one. Watched the kids getting on the bus, half of them in shorts,tee shirts,flip flops, it was 4 degrees this morning. I guess the moms thought their little darlings wouldn't get cold,since they drove the kids down the 35 ft long driveway in their Excursions and Suburbans that had probably been running for an hour warming up.

So true.

I'm a sub driver and I sometimes feel I could get in trouble for just raising my voice to calm discipline problems.

OK now. I was just about to post the same reply (except I thought someone would come back with 'they had to go somewhere after school'). The bus would drop a kid off to a waiting SUV to drive them 50 feet up the driveway. They are probably the same people that complain that their kids are too fat.

My school bus driver was a lady. That would explain the rules at the first of the year. Which was get on the bus sit down and shut up. If you must talk do so in a quite manner.You can be kicked of the bus for not behaving. No matter how far your house is.

Probably be in jail today. But she never had any problems on her bus.

On a street near where I work out of, there area bunch of duplexes and apartments. The bus comes along and stops at every driveway. The bus is full in about 2 1/2 blocks. Fortunately, the bus doesn't wait for stragglers. The school is about 7-8 blocks away thru a subdivision.
Tim in OR

Forgot to mention, North Carolina was starting to use buses about 6-7 years ago, that had about 10 acres of flat glass up front, layed back about 22 degrees. Just about perfect for reflecting the sun back into your eyes when you meet one in the morning and are headed west. I'd have to stop the truck until they were by, because I couldn't tell if the 3 billion candlepower LED lights were flashing or not in the glare.