Crazy Bus Driver

As if we don't have enough on our plate with the bullying (for those of you following my other thread) now we have a crazy bus driver.

On Thursday I picked up my 7 yr old son and 5 yr old grandson from the bus, my 7 yr old was holding a tissue to his ear which was bleeding. When asked why, he said that the driver slammed on the brakes and he fell forward scraping his ear on a screw that was sticking out of the bar thing. Grandson said he'd hit his head also and had a bump. Thinking that a car or something must have pulled out in front of them, I thought nothing more about it till later on that night my son said that the driver did this because some boys had their arms out the window.:eek::eek::eek::eek:
Horrified at this ( and because it was late) I had to wait til the morning to ring the bus company to hear their story.

H took the kids to the bus that morn and overheard a mother talking to another saying that her son had a cut ear and bruise on his head also, so H being H excused himself for listening in and told her about our kids. She was going to go to the police but was busy for the rest of the day so H said that with her support to back us, that we would do it.(we were going to anyway )

I rang the bus company, told them what happened and that we were reporting it, he was shocked and said he would talk to the driver when he comes in for work that afternoon for his side. (why wait til then we wondered)
We wanted to wait and hear his side before contacting the police in case the kids got it wrong.
H waited at the bus stop with our D (as witness) waited til all the kids were off the bus then climbed up the step (he's permantly on crutches) and proceeded to ask the driver as to what happened.

Wait for this..........
his reasoning was.......
'the intermediate kids had their arms out the window so I slammed on the brakes so they would hurt their arms and then I could tell who they were by the ones holding their arms so I could tell them off.'......:eek::eek::eek::eek:

WHAT?????? H screamed at him. You could have majorly hurt someone.... there was more conversation (and alot of justified yelling) after this (and kids were gathering outside the bus listening to the commotion) but the driver raved on about driving busses for over 20 yrs bla bla bla sick of kids doing this bla bla bla and ended up slamming the door shut on H and driving off swearing.
H rang the police then rang the bus company back who still hadn't seen the driver. they rang back saying a slightly different story than ours but around the same and the boss couldn't do alot as to 'union rules and regulations' but reported him to the higher bosses, put it on his record, gave him a warning and put him on a different bus run (god help those kids)
This guy should be sacked at the least, as he put all our kids in danger and now 'he's on a different run'???????
What the hell is this world coming too?
We've rang both the schools that use this bus run ( as this bus has 2 schools to deliver/pick up to/from) told them the story and got their full support.
We are trying to contact the other kid's parents to see if there were anymore injured on that day.
Hopefully the police can do more.

I'm not excusing the bus driver but want to say that I have an elderly uncle driving school buses and the abuse and bad behaviour he is subjected to would drive a saint to react.

Easy fixed...ring the LTSA...they will deal with it!

Wihtout seatbelts in buses, this is plain stupidity. In some ways I can so sympathise with the bus driver's frustration (without expanding) but he made a daft choice and maybe should be having a stress break (can't fire him for that!) until he can deal with these nasty little cretins.

I can imagine if it were me, I would have stopped the bus, made all the intermediate kids get off the bus and text to their parents a message "I am being an A#hole to the bus driver and he will not let me back on the bus until I send this to you. Do you want to pick me up?" Imagine it! Yeah right!

It's about time adults in these positions were given the power back to intervene and my solution would work - wouldn't it?

My bus driving uncle set two 15 year old boys off the bus in the middle of nowhere for gross misconduct that they should have been prosecuted for, they ran whinging to mummy and uncle was the one in trouble... until it came out that the two boys where holding down and indecently assulting a 12 yearold girl in the backseat of the bus! sometimes these things are not quite what the seem.

The days are long gone where you could pull the bus over and tell the naughty kids to get off, they have strict rules now as what you can and can't do.

When we lived in Te Kawa,12 or so years ago, the driver use to do that and make the kids walk and that fixed them and she yelled at them for putting their hand out the window but nowadays you can't yell at any of them or you'll get the sack.
I thought about being a 'My mum drives a Go Bus' driver but I'd go crazy from all that noise and not being able to dicipline them would drive me nuts too.

DiDi, yeah rights right. I could imagine it, and the back lash that would go with it

Cantyguy, will do that in the morning.
And yes, he should at least be stood down long enough to have a good break, not sent out on a different bus run.

I should think there would be strict rules about what the kids can and can't do as well!

The Kats Place;332863 wrote: I should think there would be strict rules about what the kids can and can't do as well!

There is also strict rules on what a driver can do! They certainly can't put kids that misbehave off the bus and leave them to walk. What they can do is through the school and the company that contracts out the school runs ( the name alludes me) refuse to let those children board the bus. This would of course only be in the case of severe mis conduct.

At the end of the day the drivers behaviour was totally unacceptable and he could be seen by LTSA as being not a 'fit and proper' person in which case he could have his licence revoked.

There is Kats, but our bus is full of little sh*ts, they have 'wardens', from the intermediate who are supose to write in a book those who misbehave but also 'pick on' some of the kids who aren't (like ours were once) We know it is a stressfull job but in this case we have to think about the safety of our kids from his 'thoughtless act' .
he should have just reported the intermediate kids (and their bus teacher is really scarey) and our kids would not have had the physical and mental injuries, as the 3 that we know of that were injured did not want to go back on the bus the next day.

The Kats Place;332863 wrote: I should think there would be strict rules about what the kids can and can't do as well!

*inserts Tui Billboard* Yeah right[}]

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

his reasoning was.......
'the intermediate kids had their arms out the window so I slammed on the brakes so they would hurt their arms and then I could tell who they were by the ones holding their arms so I could tell them off.'......:eek::eek::eek::eek:

I suggest you get together with the other parents and form a roster so that the driver has a support person who can watch the kids. Seeing as we are all quite keen for bus drivers to be watching the road......
It's quite the eye-opener:)

In my school days our driver would give us a safety lesson from time to time by hitting the brakes hard from a crawl speed just to remind us what would happen if he ever had to lock up the lot in an emergency. It was just enough to shake us up a bit as we all knew what was going to happen and it was effective teaching.
Any children who were repeatedly naughty on the bus got removed.

Good plan drifter - parents on a roster to assist rather than just complain! After all their children are a large part of the problem!

While I don't agree with what the bus driver did if this happened on our bus I would be contacting the principal of the intermediate school and getting them to rev up the kids on that run. THEY (the kids) not only put themselves at risk by hanging out the windows but also the other younger kids and others on the road as the bus driver obviously lost his reason because of their behavior.

We have "bus monitors" on our bus i.e. the senior more "responsible" students are required to keep the other kids in line and report any bad behavior back to the principal, who then deals with it. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Our driver also has full access to the Principal and keeps them informed about any issues that arise on the bus.

Smurfette with all due respect don't get involved in verbal and phone discussions with the problem, put it in writing to the manager, that way there is no problems with he said that, I said this etc. They have to answer, and if no satisfaction is achieved you can supply the information to the appropriate authorities, be it the Govt, news media etc.

It in my opinion gets action and every thing in writing is there and recorded. Keep a dairy and copies of everything.