When I was in 4th or 5th grade, our bus broke down halfway through the route. We managed to talk the bus driver into letting us walk the rest of the way home.
She never got busted for that, and I know that I did tell my parents when I got home. I thought it was a great adventure at the time. We kids simply followed the route as always, on foot on the side of the road.
Elementary School - Our bus driver ended up taking out the stop sign so many times, at the entrance to the local country club, the route was changed so that the kids had to get off well before the entrance.
Junior High - The bus route was close to a state park and had quite a few ducks in the area as a result. When the driver finally managed to hit one, it became a new game for him. He actually stepped on the gas, if any ducks were in range, and would yell some type of battle cry.
Lot’s of good stories in the thread, I kept waiting for a holding the gun on the bunny story. heh
I hated my bus driver (God rest his soul). He used to wear a green Pioneer Seeds jacket and matching hat, and when you looked at him in the rear-view mirror of the bus it looked like the stubble on his face was green too.
Having been raised in Minnesota, we had many interesting winter outings on the bus. On one occasion, we encountered a stuck truck on our way to one kid’s house and he tried to push it out with the front of the bus. Not so smart!
I was a school bus driver.
The first day of a new elementary school run, the bus loaded up with 1st through 3rd graders.
A little blonde girl came up and sat right behind me, then tapped me on the arm.
When I turned around, she said, “Mr. Bus Driver, are you mean?”
I looked her staright in the eye, and without cracking a smile, replied: “I eat kids like you for breakfast.”
Word got around. I never had problems with those kids all year. And they actually liked me! I brought them candy canes at Christmas, candy on Halowe’en, etc.
Only time I ever turned around and went back to the school was when a group of junior high school kids (the absolute WORST!!) threw a lit firecracker into the stairwell, and the thing went off right next to my ear. I lost some hearing and never drove school buses again after that.
One afternoon during my high school years a pheasant flew in front of the bus, and the bus hit it. The driver stopped, got out, picked the dead bird up and set it on the floor behind his seat. He said he was taking it home for dinner.
That was the only pheasant I ever saw in suburban Indianapolis.
Until we moved to a new state, we lived two houses away from school.
The only driver I specifically remember was in middle school. Mr. Gallagher was the best! He had installed a speaker above his seat and kept the radio tuned to WNBC. Imus in the Morning, “Nuke 'em!” Good times. One day we had a new driver; I still don’t know why.
We moved again after I started high school. My sophomore year was the first time having a radio in the bus since Mr. Gallagher. WTIX wasn’t WNBC but better than nothing.
I spent my junior & senior years in another school. Nothing notable there until one day a new stop had been added, way off our usual route and the driver wasn’t sure how to get there. We ended up cutting through a shopping center parking lot, and a lot of speedbumps. That stop was switched to someone else’s route within the week!
I had quite a few very nice bus drivers who would play music we liked, have sing-alongs, and wear costumes on Halloween.
Unfortunately, I had one very bad one who always comes to mind when people talk about bus drivers. I lived on a fairly small side street in a decent-sized suburban city, and during the winter, only the street would be plowed, not the sidewalks. The logical thing to do, which most drivers did, was to drive a little past the official school bus stop and let me off at my driveway, which was always cleared.
At one point, after a very big snowstorm, I had a driver who insisted I get off at the stop. I stood on the lower step of the bus as he pulled up to it, but when he opened the door all I saw was a huge sloping wall of snow. I asked if he could pull up a bit to my driveway, but he just yelled at me to get off. So I lifted one foot to get off, searching for a safe spot to step onto where I wouldn’t sink in to my hips or slide back into the street. I was 8 years old, and the snowbank was at least 4 feet high. As I looked for a spot, he said “Come on!” and shoved me. I was face first in the snowbank as he roared off, with my legs still sticking out into the street. My father, who usually met me outside as I got home, was just getting there and saw the last part. He scooped me up and was on the phone IMMEDIATELY with the school and the bus company, and the driver lost his job.
On a happier note, the city bus driver who I usually encounter on my way to school these days is a very cheerful man who greets every passenger, chats with whoever sits up front, and sings Christmas carols in December. 
55 in a 25, with a lame hand, every day, unless she was in a hurry.
Mitchell Williams is a bus driving legend around here. As with any crazy bis driver, he drove too fast, ran over things and was known to go the wrong way down one way streets. He would also play favorites with the passengers. One poor guy in my class got left at the bus stop every day for a week!
But, what makes him a legend are his political aspirations. You see, Mitchell wanted to be governor. That’s right. Straight from bus driving to governor of Georgia. No city council or even mayor for this guy. His campaigns were hysterical. He would solicit the students to vote for him even though very few were of legal voting age. He also had flyers printed and put up around town. He had two versions. One said, “Mitchell Williams for Governor”. The other said, “Mitchell Williams fo Guvna”. And to make it even funnier, he’d put the “fo Guvna” flyers in the really ritzy neighborhoods and the “for Governor” ones in the poorer areas. :smack:
On the upside, we all rushed to register to vote in the hopes of getting to vote for Mitchell. 
Oh yeah, I have crazy driver stories. I grew up in an extreme rural area, 3 room school house, blah blah, and for the elementary school, our ranch was the second to last stop on the route. One way it was about an hour and half on the bus. Due to the way the bussing system was set up, we actually switched buses partway on the route. It was great. That meant in the afternoon, but not the morning strangely enough, we had about a 10 - 20 minute wait in the middle of no-where for the other bus. I had so much fun at the little gravel pullout off the road over the years.
So, the bus driver I had first in kindergarden was named George. Drove like a maniac, and every single day, stopped at the little c-store/restaurant/bar in our valley and bought two packs of smokes. That was just his supply for while we were on the bus. He was constantly chain-smoking while driving. He also ate cactus. Every once in awhile when we were waiting for the other bus, he would cut off a petal/leaf/whatever they are from a cactus, skin it, and eat it. I tried it once and didn’t really like it. He was also the guy who taught me the word Motherfucker. Unfortunately, he died the next summer from lung cancer.
The next driver I had was Mimi. She was fun, sometimes, in the late spring, if it was hot and someones pivot or sprinklers was hitting the road, she would go real slow and let us get wet. Also, by the time we passed the c-store/restaurant/bar there would only be two of us on the bus, and on occasional fridays we would get milkshakes from her husband who owned it.
Then there was our high school driver. I think his name was Fritz. Very very cranky, but he had a simple rule for keeping things quiet. The louder it got, the slower he drove. It was pretty effective. If we were all silent, he would be flying down the highway. Noisy, and he would slow down to 15 before he started yelling. He didn’t have to yell too often.
I had another driver in high school after we moved who was a total b-tc-, but I can’t think of any stories that stand out.
I only had to ride a bus in 6th grade, the rest of the time I went to private school until I was old enough to drive myself. So I only have one story that I can remember. We had a new driver, she didn’t seem to be very familiar with the route but she finally got everyone picked up and headed toward school. She came to the end of a street and there were only two ways to go, one was in the opposite direction from where she wanted to go, however it was the correct direction because it actually led back to the main road. The other route, a single lane road, looked like a simple straight line to the place she wanted to go, except for one problem - the big “DO NOT ENTER - ONE WAY STREET” sign.
She starts to turn that way and we all start yelling “You can’t go that way!”. She turns anyway ignoring us because we’re just kids and what do we know about driving? We just live in that neighborhood, ride our bikes all over and know the roads like the backs of our hands AND we can read ‘DO NOT ENTER’ signs. So we yell, “you’re going the wrong way!”. She starts yelling at us to shut up and continues on down the road and of course a car comes along traveling in the correct direction and heading straight for us. Well, being that it was a small car against a large bus with a crazy driver the car wisely chose to pull off to the side of the road. Well, she makes it to the main road without killing us all but stops and proceeds to yell at all of us because if we hadn’t been yelling at her she wouldn’t have made the wrong turn. Well, if she hadn’t made the wrong turn we wouldn’t have yelled.
We never saw her again.
In first grade, we drove our bus driver literally nuts one morning: she took us on a high-speed slalom through the traffic cones in a construction zone in front of the school. I can vividly recall her maniacally laughing as she whipped the steering wheel left and right, and the bus violently rocking us into the aisle. We finally stopped when a large pile of cones had collected under the front of the bus. The police came aboard and hauled her away, never to be seen again, and then escorted the lot of us to the school. Pretty scary stuff for a seven year old.
Ye gods, stochastic!
When I was about that age, Mrs. Carey was heading down the school driveway, which curved. Somehow, the right front wheel ran over the curb, and the bus tilted up, then settled back down with a huge thud! “Sorry, kids!” “No, that was cool! Do it again!”
A few years later, one very snowy morning, the bus pulled up at school. A security guard was waiting for us; when the doors opened, he stepped inside and spoke briefly to Mr. Boghdan. Mr. Boghdan (I remember the name because how could you ever forget it?) closed the doors and turned to us with a huge grin. “School’s closed!”
“YAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!” [foot stomping]
Now, Mr. Boghdan also taught science. The following year, I was in his class. He must have found that he really liked the sound of a whole bunch of kids cheering joyfully, but also liked the sound of them groaning with frustration. He would do stuff like bring in a Dunkin’ Donuts box, hold it up and announce, “It’s [German holiday that he probably just made up], so we’re having donuts!”
“YAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!” [foot stomping]
“Just kidding. These are igneous rocks…[opens box]”
“AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!”[foot stomping]
He pulled something similar on another occasion, after enough time had elapsed for us to build up gullibility again. After that, he wisely cut it out.
This thread made me think back to my years in middle school. I don’t remember much of those days, but I DO remember our bus driver. His name was Gene and so, naturally, we called him “Mean Gene”; however, I cannot say that he was ever a “mean” bus driver. I seem to recall the bus always smelling like smoke (of various kinds, now that I think about it, but at that age I had not yet taken up the habit of smoking… so I can’t honestly say it was ever anything other than tobacco), especially towards the back of the bus. I don’t remember much about him, as far as giving a description goes. He had slicked (sp?) back silver hair and looked more like he should be driving a Harley. If you ever spoke to him, he would grumble back something completely incoherent. Looking back, I’m not sure if it was that he was insane, that I was too young to understand, or that his words were just so profound that they were beyond normal human comprehension. There were only two things that would piss Gene off - litter and excessive noise. Gene always kept his bus clean. In fact, every time you walked onto that bus, the floor was still wet… with gasoline. Yes, he used gasoline to clean the floors of the bus. I didn’t think much of it then… maybe it is a common practice (anyone know?) to get up chewing gum, etc… but looking back on it now, it is kinda scary. Was he hoping someone would throw a butt down and ignite the whole bus (or maybe he was trying to discourage that). Anyway, the craziest thing he ever did, is something I would never forget. As I said before, he DID NOT LIKE EXCESSIVE noise. Well, one afternoon, I found out why. As we were going home that afternoon, everyone was talking… loudly… not sure about what, but apparently it was too much or too loud for Gene. Suddenly, he slammed on the brakes and then he yelled “Shut the fuck up, I’M TRYING TO READ!” and held up a copy of Orwell’s “1984”. Needless to say, everyone was pretty quiet after that. Mostly trying to figure out how he could be reading and DRIVING THE BUS at the same time. I don’t know what ever happened to Gene, but I can honestly say it was his inspiring grumbles that made me curious enough to pick up a copy of the book and read it myself. So, thanks, Gene, wherever you are.
I never had to ride the bus to or from school, so all of my experience with bus drivers came from taking school field trips.
I remember we had two bus driver ladies that always drove together when two busses were necessary. So of course one drove really fast and the other drive really slow. Well, I don’t even think one of them drove fast at all, its just that the other lady drive *really really * slow. It wasn’t unusual for the second bus to arrive at its destination 2 or 3 hours after the first one.
We did hava a really cool bus driver who liked to listen to country music. He was a big time hick and let the kids chew and stuff on the bus. One time we took a trip to a wildlive preserve and I saw him sitting on a log smoking a cigarette with another kid in my class.
As if this is even possible.
She would jerk the bus forward just as someone was stepping to the ground. She did it to geeky kids (like me) I went home with skinned knees more than once.
On the way to school, we went down a steep, winding hill then up another. There was a main road at the bottom, so the two hill roads had stop signs. They were offset, so you stopped at the west stop sign, turned right, then immediately turned left, up the hill. The speed limit on both hills was 25 MPH. She would take the hills at about 50 MPH, never stopping at the crossroad. Why aren’t I dead!? We all thought it was great fun, like a roller coaster.
When I was in jr. high school, our church purchased an old school bus. A REALLY old school bus. Our youth group took a trip from West Virginia to Washington DC in this bus. We had two drivers (not sure where they came from). Now here’s the thing. About halfway to DC, they decided to change drivers, which of course is not at all surprising, but what gets it into this thread is that THEY DID NOT BOTHER TO STOP THE BUS FIRST. That’s right, they changed drivers at 55 mph travelling down a mountainside somewhere in the middle of the PA turnpike.
Then the bus broke down and we got to sit in Breezewood for a couple of hours (loads of fun). When we finally did get to DC, it was just getting dark. So of course the driver turned on the lights. They promptly went off again. The lights would only stay on while he held the switch, so we drove down the DC beltway with the driver holding the switch the entire way. This meant he had to remove his other hand from the steering wheel any time he shifted gears, right smack in the middle of the DC beltway and all of its traffic.
The craziest thing of all though is that a week later all of us climbed back onto the same bus for the return trip home without any hesitation whatsoever.
Damn… All these stories make me want to be a bus driver! I know I could create some lasting memories.