After six months of retirement, I have finally settled into a new job. I drive a school bus.
Starting off training during the summer was not the best decision. Once I finished, the district did not have any work for me. So I called a nearby district and they offered my $3 more an hour and Blue Cross health care. Now school is back in session and so I am working six hours a day.
Anyway, there is a nationwide shortage of drivers, so school buses seem to be all over the news. Perhaps there is enough interest to support a discussion.
“Driving is the easy part,” all the experienced drivers say. Running the route, turn here, go there, it is worse to be early than to be late, that is the hard part.
That said, the first day I was doing solo with students I managed to back into a bollard. Do you know what they do to you if you dent your bumper? They send out a policeman to make an insurance report and then tell you to continue the run.
Then you take it to the garage for repair and have to fill out an accident report. Every person you meet smiles and say, “That’s nothing! I bent the entire frame and totaled a car too!” Nothing much happens.
The calls on the radio amaze me. “Can someone get to Edgewood and pick up two students for 54?” I hardly know the streets, these guys just ad lib their routes. It is very impressive. I have told everyone to leave me alone until Christmas, I just have to master my route first.
In the morning I pick up high school students for the Catholic schools. Then I rendezvous with three other buses who transfer their Catholic school students to me. Then down the highway about ten miles and I drop them off.
In the afternoon, I pick up those students at their schools and take them home. Then I go over to an elementary school and pick up their students and take them home.
I got hit by a bus, destroyed my car, honestly surprised my car didn’t roll over (surveillence cameras on nearby buildings showed both passenger side tires up in the air). The cops took 45 minutes to get there and I remember his supervisor saying, to me, ‘if the police aren’t here in the next few minutes, we’ll just exchange information. I have to get him back on the road’.
No drug test, no ‘what the fuck happened’ conversation, no ‘I need to check your phone to see if you were talking/texting’, no ‘how did you not see him as you pushed his car down the street’ nothing, The most important thing for her was getting him back on the road.
And somehow he didn’t even get a ticket.
Are you allowed to drop kids off anywhere along the route at their request or are you bound to stopping only at designated points? Reason I ask is my high schooler is the only kid at his stop and it’s about two blocks past our house. To get to the stop the driver goes past our house every day to get there.
It’d be pretty convenient if he could get dropped off right in front of the house but something tells me the bus driver isn’t allowed to do this. Is that correct?
The first district had just recently voted in the Operators Union, I do not remember the exact name. It was too soon for the union to have an impact. This district has some educational professional union.
I have not had any issues with the children. Honestly, the high school students have their noses stuck in various electronic devices. The elementary students are still real people, making noise and talking to each other.
Yes, that seems to be the problem. The training programs shut down due to the plague and more than a few semi-retired people took the time to decide to become really-retired.
First you need to pass the physical and police background checks.
You need to pass written tests at the DMV for bus, air brakes, and the regular commercial vehicle stuff. That gets you a school bus learners’ permit. Then you do on-the-road training followed by an on-the-road test. I failed this the first time.
Frankly the local training program was too long as they had only a few very-busy instructors. After almost two months, I was proficient in actually driving the bus, but I was not really happy with the training.
So now we have a shortage. Unless they fix the local training programs, there will be no near-term fix.
