I'm tired of giving out $500 tickets

In reply to Toyman01 : I can be called to testify if needed.  So far most either just pay or go to mediation court to get the fine reduced in exchange for attending classes.  

Once they see their face it's pretty well over.  

In reply to MrJoshua : once busing was privatized the bus companies made sure they sold as much busing as the school district could buy.  

Plus some of my district includes really high dollar homes.  The kind with the parents who want everything for their kids and aren't afraid to throw tax dollars at it to get it.  

In my mind that's what is horribly unfair about America.  Wealthy school districts have so much while some schools are forced to subsist on whatever they can. 

Then there is the whole private school thing.  A few parents send their children to the high dollar private schools. The ones with waiting lists and admission requirements.  

In reply to frenchyd :

That may do it.

One of the towns on I95 tried to do that with a patrol officer triggering the camera. SC courts still shot them down because they weren't issuing citations at the time of the infraction. A mailed ticket may not be accepted. 

It will be interesting to see how this scenario plays out if the buses around here ever start running cameras. 

Edit: It looks like SC tried to pass legislation for bus mounted cameras in 2014. It went to the judiciary committee who stated, that a ticket could be issued based on video evidence recorded by a bus mounted camera, but they also added that the ticket must be issued in person by the law enforcement officer issuing the citation to meet constitutional requirements. That nixes the mailing of tickets. Much like the speed camera referenced above. 

I would like to add this because I'm never conversed with a school bus driver.

You sir must be an amazing individual. I couldn't drive a bus load of kids across town unless they were all gagged, hog tied and sedated. I would go insane and half of them would end up walking when I bodily heaved them into a ditch on the side of the road. 

Just the thought of 50+ kids in a steel box without an armed guard gives me the willies. 

You are

I work for the 5th largest district in the country; Clark County, Las Vegas and one of the things I buy is school buses. While we have cameras on the bus we don't use the system your talking about. 

We've had a couple of high profile accidents in the las t two years; one was a poor child who got off the bus, waited for about 30-45 seconds and then unfortunately  stepped in front of the back tires. I think she was around 10-12 years old. The driver was so distraught that they never returned to work. The second incident was only a few months ago. A driver ran a light and speared the bus mid-way, the rear tires rolled up over the driver's side roof killing the driver instantly, a young girl in the car (grandma was taking her to school) barely survived. The bus was flipped on its side. We were very lucky, the worst injuries were a couple of kids broke their arms. They were Jr high kids and they all helped each other and the driver (who was injured)  out of the bus.

People don't realize how heavy these vehicles are (they also cost you the tax payer 140K or more) and kids are unpredictable.

I got mad at motorists for two standpoints; they don't cut drivers any slack and when they do, they do things like stop where they don't have to. In Nevada if there is a median you do not stop, when you stop it encourages kids to J walk on busy 4 lane roads. They also ride along in blind spots (buses are equipped with mirrors to cover most angles but they're not foolproof)

In reply to Toyman01:

In the Upstate, they do not put the stop sign out unitl they are completley stopped.  But, they put the of flashers on well before that, so you still cannot tell where they are stopping.  I think the flashers change from yellow to red when the sign comes out.  I have stopped several times, only to have the bus pass me, stopping behing me.    

I must admit I blew by a bus from the rear one day completely by accident.   I do not think the sign had come out yet.  This was the first time I had ever encountered a bus stopping on this road (divided 4 lane) in the many years I had traveled to work.  I jsut think I was not used to seeing it.  I still get chills thinking about it.    

frenchyd said:

In reply to Zomby Woof :karma is a strange thing, that kid you run over might have been the doctor that could have saved your life. Or maybe been the quarterback who took your team to the Super Bowl 

Or maybe when you have grandchildren not run them over.  

 

Karma's an intriguing concept, even believable at times.

I think you either completely misunderstand what I'm trying to say, or are using drama to make some kind of a point (I know what that point is :) ).  Nonetheless, as much as I really don't like little kids, I really have no interest in running them over, nor seeing anybody else do so. I would actually like the kids to learn how to navigate traffic on their own. I've seen videos of kids almost getting hit by people passing the buses with the lights on. The one thing that's common in all of the videos was that none of the kids looked into traffic before crossing. They just walked across the road and almost got hit. The lights (and these laws) are making them stupid.

The retracting arms are a more recent development, but the flashing red lights and the laws about passing school buses have been around as long as I can remember and I graduated from high school almost 45 years ago...so by your reckoning, there's several generations of people walking around who are stupid because they rode the bus? 

In reply to Zomby Woof :I understand what you are saying and agree that in a perfect world kids learn to protect themselves.  I'm not trying to vilify anyone simply making adults aware of  their responsibility.

Yet kids have intensely short attention spans.  They don't understand mortality ( nor should they at a young age) Plus not all adults are good parents. ( that imperfect world again) 

i have 549 students I potentially am required to transport. Plus another 276 on the activity bus list.  You see a lot of things with that many kids.  Parents drunk at 8:30 in the morning.  5 year old children left more or less to their own devices.  

No social services can't help because as bad as some parents are it's still better than putting kids in the system. Where if they are lucky they are neglected and feel like trash.  You don't want to hear about the unlucky ones.  

  You get pretty protective as a bus driver so I ask adults to give the kids a break please stop for the stop arm and slow down when the ambers come on

If there's one thing cell phones have done, it's show just how incredibly stupid some people are.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/1UTM40K53K8?rel=0

In reply to Schmidlap :

The Jeep Compass has very good off road capability it seems. Trail rated? 

As a former Driver, I understand all of the above arguments.  I was lucky, we had a Bus Matron on board, as I was driving Handicapped  children.  Regardless, what part of the 10 months a year do drivers not understand?   School is open, and there will be more kids and buses.  Adjust your travel times accordingly.  I've personally witnessed everything from being hit by cars, to people wanting to fist fight you because they wanted the best place to park in a School Bus Only loading zone.

Schmidlap said:

If there's one thing cell phones have done, it's show just how incredibly stupid some people are.

 

 

 

For justice served go here.

I really wish school busses didn't have the orange lights, or that their duration was fixed - say six seconds. 

Around here some school busses drive a half mile with the orange lights flashing, and if you don't know the bus stop locations, you get to roll along behind them wondering when/if they'll ever stop

I'm cool with stopping for the school bus so as not to run down children and all... but I wish more bus drivers would look in the mirror once in a while. There is no reason not to pull over and let the cars being  held up go by every once in a while. They might even not be in a full blown rage and try to pass you when you come to a stop at every 2nd house on a busy road if there was some chance ya'll would make way pretty soon. 

In reply to frenchyd :

Micro managed to oblivion.

All for $11 an hour and no benefits because you are a "Part Time" employee.

And the bus driver is always wrong even if there is video of the varmit walking up the stairs backwards without using the hand rail.

In reply to Toyman01 :

I started out trying to get closer to my granddaughter.  The school district was desperate and so I answered.  

What shocked me was you become friends with so many kids.  High schoolers aren't any problem. They get on the bus half asleep and nap all the way to school less than 1/2 ride back home and they tend to be the quiet ones

Elementary students respond to my best impersonation of the drill instructor  who put me through flight training. 

Intimidation works well in getting them to behave and then I give them all a high five on the way off the bus.  5-10 year olds don't have much strength  but I holler loudly about how they are abusing my poor hand and they all leave  happy. The 5 th and 6th graders are too cool to do something as prosaic  a high 5 

In reply to Huckleberry : the rules won't allow much discretion in driving. Schedules are to be kept and parents will call if we are as much as a minute late.  The On board GPS tells everyone in the district exactly where we are and what speed we are doing.  So no speeding to make up time  and the schedule really doesn't adjust for stop lights or trains.  

We can' start early or the kids won't be there when we get there.  We can't be late we have to be on time.  

In reply to bentwrench : part time employees without a job 3 months of the year.    Plus Christmas and Easter break, every teachers conference and day off is an unpaid holiday. Nope can't get unemployment insurance for the summer. Funny, payments must be paid all year long.  

Luckily few are willing to work under those conditions. Even fewer with the required licenses ( class B commercial driving license, bus endorsement, air brake endorsement, background check, and character assessment.  

Then we have to conform to federal state and local regulations, school and company regulations,  we start at 5:30 am and if I don't have an evening charter I'll get home at 7:00-7:30 PM   Last paycheck I was paid for 88.6 hours but I worked a total of 129 hours.  

The most predictable thing about kids is their unpredictability.  

Disagree. I have a very good idea how quick a human body of nearly any size and shape can change direction and accelerate. If you grow up dodging dogs and cats (and deer, and javelina, and turkeys, and vultures, and..) on the road, humans don't seem all that agile. I'm the type of person that hates driving anywhere near bicyclists (even on sidewalks) because i am actually perturbed by their ability to change direction very quickly while losing control. Visibility is way more of an issue. I can't dodge what i can't see coming, which is why i tend to take the earliest possibility to safely pass anything i can't see around (like a school bus). I can't count the number of people who have obviously taken me for an shiny happy person when i pass their large vehicle and then resume going nearly the same speed as them. Sorry, but i like to see in front of me. WAY in front of me. 

I dislike stopping for school buses only for a couple of reasons. One of them is when the unloading process is just so long that you can guess with near certainty that everyone involved has zero consideration for who or how many they are imposing their own sluggishness on. The other is when i am on the other side of a road divided by a median, a good 50 ft from the bus. Aside from that I tend to just turn off and take an alternate route as soon as i end up behind a school bus during that time of day and spend very very little time out of my life being bothered by it. I am 'all in' on the concept of taking a longer route that saves no time but just keeps me moving, so i roll with those punches pretty peacefully. 

In reply to Vigo :as for how sluggish some students are loading and unloading , I couldn't agree more!  Absolutely no consideration for traffic ( and my schedule) 

they wait until I come to a complete stop and then wake up and start to gather their things, once they have everything they start to get up only to find with so much junk they have to set everything down to stand and then pick their things back up, step out of the seat and look back 2 or 3 times to make sure they got everything.  Next they tell all their "friends" good bye and some other blather.  Slowly walk up the aisle like they are going to their own hanging. Of coarse they are in a back row!!! Their junk hangs up on seat backs and chance are they will drop something and pick it up only to drop more!! 

By now drivers want to run the kids over, back up and repeat