School bus driver is a retirement job. 2 hrs in the morning and 2 more in the afternoon. Who would want their entire day ruined.

Our school district is combined with two other townships. There are kids who live in one township that get bussed to the elementary and middle schools in the other township even though they have a school very close to them. Makes no sense.

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Originally posted by PHPaul:
You literally couldn't pay me enough to drive a school bus.

I don't think I could either, for all the reasons you mentioned.

Who would have guessed that all the new regulations imposed on CDL drivers would lead to a shortage of people to do the jobs requiring one? It's inconceivable, I tell ya!

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Originally posted by PHPaul:

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Originally posted by V-Tail:

School bus? We had to walk to school. Ten miles. Up hill both ways.

In the snow.

We could not afford shoes, so in the winter we wrapped barbed wire around our feet for traction on the ice.

Often, for me the school bus ride was the trip of terror. If you were 10 seconds late, the damn thing sped off and all the occupants ran to the back windows and flipped you off while laughing hysterically as they watched you choke on diesel fumes as you hopelessly chase it. If you were lucky and had lots of wind, you could run full speed over to the next block to attempt an intercept. If you failed, you got to go home to face your Mother. My hat was often the the focal point of a game called "keep away". Riders often puked on the trip, then others would join in. If you spotted your buddy in another seat, as soon as you stood to change seats the driver would stand on the brakes, throwing you to the nasty floor or onto your fellow riders, who would beat you for your poor choice of timing. Some smartass always thought it was cool to flip off the following patrol car, which resulted in your very own version of ADAM-12 and the flipper being dragged off the bus. Have a minor skirmish with the bus bully? The bus came to a skidding halt, the driver then booted (literally) both you and the bully off the bus, where he immediately resumed beating your ass. In winter, the windows immediately frosted over, giving the interior of the bus the appearance of a claustrophobic rolling chest freezer, occupied by forty other frozen victims. In summer, it was a moving microwave oven. The suspension of your bus was made of concrete, which transmitted every bump through the hard plastic seat and directly into your spine. Some asshole would throw something nasty out of a front window, where it would gain velocity and fly back into your window, impacting your face or hair. As I aged so did several sluts who lived on my bus route. Watching porn has its adherents, but watching awkward teenage sex taking place 6 feet from you somehow was not the same thing. I once witnessed a strange form of soccer involving a used sanitary napkin being kicked up and down the aisle of the bus. I finally just gave up on the bus experience and rode my bike to school. Being exposed to traffic was just safer. Drive a bus? Not for any amount of money!

School bus ride? Never had the pleasure. Walked to school pretty much every day from K to the middle of 11th grade, when I bought my first car. From K to 5th grade I really DID walk to school uphill both ways...well at least partially uphill in both directions.

Nope. No way. Never. The bus company couldn't come up with enough money and gold to pay me to deal with all those filthy, disease-riddled younglings, regardless of the existence of Wuhan flu. I still vividly remember how often I caught a cold or the crud because of the kids. A whole bus full of those insane squealing semi-humans of unknown origins and histories and families, with my immune system? Not in MY senior years, bucko.

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Originally posted by V-Tail:

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Originally posted by PHPaul:

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Originally posted by V-Tail:

School bus? We had to walk to school. Ten miles. Up hill both ways.

In the snow.

We could not afford shoes, so in the winter we wrapped barbed wire around our feet for traction on the ice.

You could afford barbed wire? Wow, that's really uptown!

We had to straighten out bent nails and drive them through out feet.

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Originally posted by PHPaul:

You could afford barbed wire? Wow, that's really uptown!

We had to straighten out bent nails and drive them through out feet.

Some of the kids at our school were so poor that they didn't even have feet.

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Originally posted by PHPaul:
You literally couldn't pay me enough to drive a school bus.

Drivers have NO control over the kids and any attempt to maintain order on the bus would result in you getting fired, or worse.

When I went to school in the 50's and 60's, the bus driver was like the captain of a ship: His word was law, and if he kicked you off the bus, that was that.

Of course, back then, most parents would kick your ass when you got home for getting kicked off the bus. Nowadays, they have a lawyer on speed dial.

Same here except it was late 70's, early 80's.
I remember the driver's name too, Mrs. Winters. If you fucked around on her bus you were done and 1 kid did. She kicked him off and that was it. It was funny because the very next day, he was standing at the end of his driveway waiting to get picked up and she drove right past him. Poor Danny. Remember his name too.
I wouldn't drive a bus either as I'd be tempted to do what my bus driver did and end up being fired or a lawsuit.

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This ^^^^^, and there ought to be a minimum distance from the school before a child is allowed to ride the bus. I watched one bus depart elementary school grounds, go a hundred yards or so down the road to the first intersection, turn, go another hundred yards or so, and drop a child off. I kid you not. Beautiful weather, sidewalks all the way.

In Washington State, it’s one mile. However, due to “safety” reasons it’s more a stones throw. Which returns us to helicopter parents, lawyers and spineless administrators.

No problem when I went to high school. I drove the bus. I had to go anyway and got paid for it

There is a bus driver shortage here in Clark County School District (Vegas area). It was in the news few days ago. The first week of school was BAD!!!

My son is Senior HS in a magnate school, about 15 miles away. He is on the first pick up (9 total pick up points). He gets picked up at 0515. First day of school, the bus was 15 min late. Understandable. Second day, we waited until 0545. GPS tracking on the bus said the bus was 15 mins away. Bus never came to pick him up. Decided to drive my son to school. I was 2 hr late for work. The following days (pick up) remained consistently late between 15-20 mins. Drop off was BAD! One day, the bus was 2 hrs late in picking him up from school, which made him 2 hrs LATE for drop off.

Last week, they added another route to our son’s bus. He is no longer the last drop.

Friend of mine has driven school bus for years. He's a great story teller to boot. He can give you some good belly laughs with some of his on the bus stories after a few beers.

It is Monday morning. We have been sitting here at the pick up place for my son. Supposed to be 0525. It is bow 0610, still no bus. School bus tracking said another 15 mins before it gets here. I could have driven my son to school. But I will
Be late for work again.

Mrs. Flash's 1st Cousin (female) is a retired school bus driver.

She'd tell stores that would curl your hair.

Unionized school bus drivers in Boston doing in 40-60 per hour range.

$21/hour isn't enough to deal with these little shit heads these days.

We drove our kids to school and picked them up at the end of the day. They were very excited when they got to ride the cheesewagon for special events.

I was never driven to school and rode the bus every day. Sometimes the bus was late. You just waited. If you were lucky the bus driver told the principal and you did not get a tardy.

When I retired from the police dept, my family health care retired too. I decided to get a part time job as a school bus driver to pay for health care. Our son was just starting school. My wife decided to get a job at the middle school in the kitchen when he started first grade. The bus garage was literally 4 minutes from my house. The CDL training wasn't easy. I got all my endorsements. The company paid for my training, but not my time. Our school district contracts out the busing. I can only say that I absolutely love my job!!!!! I've had the same route for the past four years. You really get to know the kids and their families. A couple of the families I've had all their kids at one time or another. The pay is about $20.00 per hour, about 4.5 hours a day. It's basically part time. If you do a mid day run, and a couple of field trips, you can make some money. My hours basically cover my family health care with a bit left over. I punch in at 0640 Hrs, and am done by 0900. In the afternoon I punch in at 1420 Hrs, and am done by about 1645 Hrs. I have the whole middle of the day to do whatever I want.

Off holidays, weekends, and summers. My schedule mirror's my wife's and son's.

I live and work in a very upscale area. I have to admit my kids are extremely well behaved. We started school about 10 days ago. After the first 3 days I knew which new students may be a handful. I just did my seating charts today and separated the more rowdy kids and put them up front. My middle school kids filled out their own seating charts and sit with whomever they want with the understanding that if there's a problem, I'll move them around.

Several of my boys are on the same baseball and soccer teams as my son.

We are short drivers, about 10% of the routes are covered by administrative staff from the garage, and outside districts. The stories the drivers from there tell are amazing, and not in a good way. If my kids ever acted like that, I'd have a heart attack. I can honestly say with very few exceptions, I really love my job, the kids, and their families.

My best friend's mother drove a school bus for many years. She wound up with serious hearing loss and hearing aids at a fairly young age from it.