In the last 30 days I have been driving my bus thinking to myself about what my next blog should consist of. Every time I think I have it all thought out and get ready to write it something else happens that is blog worthy. Well, this month the blog worthy material consists of crashes and other drivers. In my life time as a bus driver ( 11 years ) I think that in the last month we have had the most accidents in our fleet that has ever taken place since I have been here. Now let me clarify on what I mean by accidents, because many people automatically think the bus is as fault but in reality it is the other driver or objects that cause this mishaps. We have had multiple people rear end the buses this month. In one case the bus was stopped at a stop loading students and the driver felt a jolt in the back. When she looked up in the mirror thinking that it was the students in the back jumping around, the kids started shouting “ we have just been hit!”. You see buses are pretty heavy and are high off the ground so when I car rear ends a bus, the car usually ends up with hood under the bus and the buses bumper at the windshield. the main question is “how do you not see a big yellow Twinkie ?” I can understand the smaller special needs bus getting rear ended when she stopped at a cross walk to let the pedestrian cross. Where not the car behind her but the car behind that one didn’t stop and pushed the first car right into the bus going 30 mph. Then you have the early morning driver who is late for work, not quite awake yet and sipping on their first cup of coffee when they run the red light and crash into the bus that is now in the intersection. How about the deer that commits suicide by jumping into the lane that the bus is traveling. Better yet, the idiot that make a turn into the parking lot hits a parked bus and drives away.....hello can you say, “hit and run” ? These are just a few of the accidents that we have had in the last month. They all get reported and a committee then goes over them to see if they were “preventable” or not. What do you think?
I personally had my first “road rage” experience. I had just pulled into my last school of the day, got off my bus to read the hub miles. While I was writing it down a heavy set woman wearing what looked like an Olive Garden server attire came around and asked me if I was the bus driver. I smiled and said yes, why? OMG....She went on this rant about how I ran and red light, cut her off, was speeding and a few other things. I of course stayed calm and started questioning her right back. Like which light did I run? How fast did she think I was going, etc. Then I explained to her that I when I got back to transportation I would have my boss check and confirm her accusations on the computer. She looked at me shocked and said, “What does that mean?” This is when I smiled and told her “ we have Zonar / GPS on my bus and it will tell them IF I was speeding, stopped and what time” her jaw dropped! She then asked me my name and typed away on her phone, I am assuming I just made her Facebook status :) ! I did call base and let them know what had happened and to expect a call. She never called, go figure!
So in one of my last blog I talked about a little boy having an accident on my bus and how I have a kindergarden route in the middle of the day. Well this kindergarden route is at a different school than my normal route, so I drive out of 4 different schools in a day. this one day the office told me that I had a new kindergardener to take home. So I go to the school I start loading my students and the new little boy looks up at me and says, “ I know you! You were my bus driver from my other school.” He took his seat and as I was driving away from the school he goes on to tell the other 2 students that he remembers the rules of the bus. He starts saying, “ Don't talk loud, sit down in your seat, don’t pee on the bus floor....” I just bust out laughing!
