I got stuck behind a schoolbus today. It was on a semi-rural, tree-lined road with enough curves that passing isn’t an option. And there I am, toodling along behind a schoolbus. I have three miles to go to my destination. The bus is creeping along, red lights flashing, dropping off the kids. Stop. Let out one kid. Drive one hundred yards. Stop. Let out two kids. Drive one hundred yards. Stop. Let out one kid. Wait while she picks up the bookbag that she dropped going down the steps. Drive to the next mailbox. Let out one kid. You get the picture.
Now I hate to sound like a grouch here, but when I was a kid --in 1980, back when the earth’s crust was still cooling-- I walked about half a mile to this thing called a “bus stop”, where the school bus would pick up every kid in the neighborhood all at once. And at the end of the day, that was where I got dropped off – along with everyone else. Then I’d do this crazy thing called “walking” to get to my house.
I don’t mind being a good neighbor and waiting while the schoolbus dumps off the latest load of America’s Future, but MY GOD…! I’ve seen kids around town; they can run around the playground screaming for hours, and have you noticed them at the mall? They’ll walk around all afternoon there. I’m sure they can muster the energy to walk a few blocks to their house rather than have door-to-door service.
Eh. Ever since a few well-publicized incidents of groups of kids being dropped off en masse and then plowed into as a whole by drivers, most rural school districts have adopted the policy of “Just drop them off at their own driveway”.
You’re lucky you don’t live in Saskatchwan, those Effing buses have strobe lights on them. I’m waiting for the day when one of those BRIGHT strobes causes someone to have an epliectic fit on the highway and crash; sad for individual, good for society. FTR the strobes are on all the time (even when the bus is doing 120 clicks in a 100 click zone).
I wouldn’t mind the strobes if they had them on when it was foggy/dark, and the kids were getting off, but to have them on all the time, its stupid, annoying, useless (for those of you that don’t know Saskatchewan is very flat and open [the part in question has trees, but that doesn’t matter], no one is going to miss seeing a great big yellow school bus) and physically painful.
At least you didn’t nearly get creamed by one careening around a blind corner while operating left of center, like I almost did today. Geez, slow down already, Mr. Bus Driver! Plus he was in a 25 zone to boot.
Back when the first vertebrates started to appear (that is mid 90s ) I had to walk about half a mile too. But I was about 14 back then. For elementary school children the bus would stop right outside their house and in addition to that, a parent had to wait there to pick them up.
I remember some times we had to wait 20-30 minutes until a parent would come. :mad: And their freaking house was just 30 meters away! But that was the school policy
Did this semi-rural road have a sidewalk? In my school district, which is mostly rural, there aren’t any sidewalks once you get out of the “downtown” area. I don’t think they should just dump little kids off at the side of a 55 MPH two lane highway so they can wander down the road to their own driveway. If there is a sidewalk the city might have decided that the age of the children warranted individual pick-up.
In town, where there are sidewalks, and in small neighborhoods out of town with no sidewalks the kids meet at the corner and get picked up as a group. On the main roads they get driveway service.
I rode schoolbuses from 1964 to 1975, and we always had door-to-door service. As you might expect, it never, ever occurred to us how aggravating the buses must have been to other traffic on the twisty narrow streets where we lived, in the hills between Beverly Hills and the San Fernando Valley.
In early high school, there was a period of time when I had a slightly different schedule from everyone else on my bus route…I started an hour later, or an hour earlier, but I don’t remember which. So they actually ran the bus, just for my benefit. I was the only passenger, all the way into school. That would have been supremely aggravating to drivers stuck behind me, had they known!
On my route to work, I get trapped by a shool bus loading stop/area. It stops outside of this neighborhood where there must be a billion (not really, but you know what I mean) kids getting on the bus. The bus loading prosess takes somthing like 10-15 minutes. Traffic backs up nearly a half mile in each direction from this crap. And no,there isn’t a better way to get to work. I will risk the getting stuck by the stupd bus. My trick to missing it is just running late every day it just doesn’t always work
) I had to walk about half a mile too. But I was about 14 back then. For elementary school children the bus would stop right outside their house and in addition to that, a parent had to wait there to pick them up.
