Become a School Bus Driver? Not on Your Life!

Consider the school bus driver. He or she is entrusted with a monumental responsibility twice a day, each day school is in session.
Over the course of a 183-day school year, those drivers get to know most of the students on their routes. If they keep the same route over the years, chances are good that they will come to know those boys and girls, and watch as they develop into teens.
After the magical age when a driver’s license is issued, many of those riders are never seen again. If they are, it is only because the car broke down, or they had a falling out with the person who was driving them to school.
Bus drivers do a job many of us would shun without question.
Many of us would not want the responsibility of transporting maybe 40, shall we term them, “exuberant” youngsters from home to school and back. To some of those young riders, the driver becomes, over time, almost part of the extended family. They are the person who greets them as they start their busy days of testing and learning, most when they would rather be sleeping or playing the latest electronic game.
But there are problems that come with driving a bus.
There are fights that break out on even the best of bus routes. It is the result of a society raised on a steady diet of violent television shows, murderous video games and movies that show more blood than a slaughterhouse.
Yes, it’s a sad commentary, but this is what it’s come to in this rustic part of the Garden State.
At its Jan. 15 meeting, the Middle Township Board of Education heard a report by Burgess Hamer, chairman of the Transportation Committee. He stated that all school buses in the district now have cameras on board, and drivers have been instructed not to disconnect or turn them off.
One member of the public lauded that action. She said she had been behind several school buses when fights had broken out. Those cameras would, at least, show who instigated the argument and who made the first strike.
That’s just one aspect of school bus driving. Consider those times when you might have a splitting headache, and you had to take your run of screaming youngsters home, and that would take maybe 45 minutes. Would there be enough money to pay you then?
Would you be willing to accept the responsibility that a youngster might have a seizure on your bus? What would you do if, perhaps, one of the children began to have an asthmatic attack?
There are measures that can be taken to ensure all children are off the bus. One of those measures is a button in the rear of the bus that, when pushed, indicates that the driver has inspected all seats to the rear, thus ensuring no sleeping child is left onboard at the end of a run.
Bus drivers, too, have their own set of life-threatening complaints. Chief among them is a motorist who won’t abide by the flashing red lights.
Such thoughtless motorists, many illegally chattering away on a cell phone, seem oblivious to the fact they could have seriously injured or killed a child by their inattention.
Several years ago, I wrote a story about drivers who freely stated such careless actions were an everyday occurrence along their bus routes.
Drivers have radios, and can call the local police department when they witness such an infraction.
Drivers, like others on the road, also have faults. Some seem to care less about a quarter-mile-long line of traffic trailing them as they drop off their backpack toting charges.
Others are courteous, and will pull over to allow the traffic backlog to alleviate.
Some appear to know when I am rushing to an appointment, and left a few minutes late. That’s when parents love to hold conversations with drivers as they drop off pupils.
Then, there are other bus drivers must hold part-time jobs as, or wannabe, NASCAR drivers. They barrel down the road at excessive speeds, and, given the size of their vehicle, usually get the right of way. Don’t cross their path when they’re heading back to the bus garage. To do so may be hazardous to one’s health. Those drivers are few, thank goodness.
To be sure, a driver’s lot is not a happy one. Trying to keep track of who rides the bus on certain days, and who gets dropped off at Mom Mom’s house on alternate Thursdays would be enough to make an adult cry.
Sitting outside a slow-moving child’s home tooting the horn on a frosty morning would be enough to anger many of us, but drivers do it as a part of their ritual.
One thing I will not do is to complain about school bus drivers. Until I would grab the wheel and ride the route for a day or a week, I cannot pass judgment on someone who taxis a load of children from home to school and back on a regular basis.
I’ll take a step farther. I’ll tip my Nike ball cap to those drivers who undertake such a responsibility on a daily basis. There isn’t enough to pay me to do their job!