School bus driver refused to drop my daughter home

She is not 9 years old. She is year 9.

If driver had run out of hours he should have arranged for a relief driver to be sent out.

This is completely irrelevant. She may not have had her phone, it may have been dead and she may not have been able to contact anyone and would have been left on her own because all of the other children who would get off at that stop would naturally go home.

There will be a contract between the school and the bus company that will obligate them to report changes to stops in advance to the school so it can be communicated to the parents for safeguarding reasons. They have a duty of care. What do you think would happen if a child got dropped off randomly and got lost as a result? 15 minutes away isn’t even local to the original stop. Not all children are streetwise and have good coping skills in an unexpected situation. It wasn’t an emergency situation, he chose to change the designated route on a whim and expected to be able to clock off early I would well imagine. He wouldn’t give his name as he didn’t expect to be caught out and doesn’t want to have to reap the repercussions of his actions; not because he thinks someone may put it on Mumsnet thread. 🙄 Besides, if you’re not going to cause safeguarding risks to children then you have nothing to fear by giving your name should you? If you were him of course. Also If he believed he was in the right he would have calmly explained a valid reason for not dropping her at her designated stop instead of giving some vague nonsense excuse about traffic. He didn’t have a good reason and so he got defensive and was rude. Having words doesn’t mean that the OP was rude or aggressive in any manner unlike the bus driver himself.

OP, It shouldn’t be difficult to find out who it was if you give details of the bus route and driver’s description. With their contracts comes safeguarding obligations which he has failed to consider and act upon. The school could rightly withdraw the company’s contract over behaviour like this.

In my experience, people who refuse to give their names are usually afraid of losing their jobs or of being demoted or of being suspended or of getting in some sort of trouble.
If he was confident in being right, he would’ve told the OP his name and supplied her with his supervisor’s name, too, I’m sure.
The refusal to give his name is a dead giveaway. He did something wrong, and he knows it.
I’m happy your daughter made it home safe, @Theherringbonesand I hope you follow up on this poor behaviour — otherwise, the driver will think he’s entitled to repeat it.

You clearly have no knowledge of the bus industry. Buses and drivers will do other routes before, between or after the school trips. So they could easily run out of hours.

I grew in very similar circumstances and would have reacted in the same way. Honestly even now I'm my 30s if I was abandoned in the middle of nowhere, I'd be quite upset!

Hope you get somewhere with the school. It really does sound like he wanted to get home himself rather than finish the job!

I would contact the school and have a clear plan in place for future because if her phone wasn't working or you were not available, this very much was a safeguarding issue and you need to know what the rules are going forwards so you can plan accordingly.

And what if nobody could get her

Edited: initially asked how the driver knew she would be picked up but I am guessing the daughter passed the phone to him

He didn't leave her in the middle of nowhere - he warned DD that he couldn't take her to her destination, asked her to call someone to pick her up and handed her over to OP. There was no leaving her anywhere.

I'm sorry but do you know the first thing about autism? As the OPs DD possibly is (she describes it as currently undiagnosed, I assume awaiting assessment)? My DD at 18 would likely cry, it's the complete change of plans, it would mess with her head and send her body into overdrive and her adrenaline would be through the roof, that is likely what caused it.

Unfortunately dealing with ND you don't get to just suck it up when your body goes into meltdown and as sensible as my DD is, and as logical as her mind tries to be, her body doesn't co operate. It's a massive impact on her when anything changes and although she tries to deal with it, something like this changing so suddenly would have a real impact on her.

It absolutely is not.
A 13 or 14yo dropped off suddenly and unexpectedly a 15 minute drive from home, so perhaps not easily walkable (possibly in bad weather) would be quite stressed and anxious. Crying when she spoke to her mother maybe a combination of stress and relief.

Surely this is a safeguarding issue?
Definitely raise this with the school and coach company. They can’t be dropping children at random points in the journey because of traffic.

Yanbu he abandoned a teenage girl and left her stranded. I'd be fuming if I'd paid for a bus or taxi and they did that to me you can't just leave people in the middle of no where. People on this thread sticking up for the driver I wonder how they would feel if a taxi driver left them in the middle of nowhere and didn't take them to their destination that they'd paid for.

Now OP has clarified this is a "late" bus and not an after school bus, it does sound like the bus driver was out of driving hours for the day. Not sure what else he could have done? He told DD to contact an adult to pick her up and an adult arrived in time, so DD was not left on her own in a strange place.

This is a Safeguarding issue. It is his job to ensure that she is dropped off at her home. Not some random place. She is 9 years old fgs. How could he leave a 9 year old on her own in the dark. I would deffo speak to the school and raise a complaint. They will know who the driver is

I imagine there’s a real chance a bus driver on a school,bus run can go over hours, as that won’t be the only driving they do in a day. They are possibly doing a morning run and then daytime work on other routes / services, or doing those in the day and then the home time run in the evening. By the end of the day the cumulative effect of delays could easily take someone over 10 hours. But I agree, there ought to be a contingency plan.

God there is some horrible people on this post.
It will be a case of do as I say not as I do.
If it had happened to their child they would explode.

If you're paying for the private bus to take her home then that's absolutely what I would expect - regardless of traffic/weather.

Since she wasn't taken home (in the service you have paid for) I'd absolutely be asking for a refund of that journey. You have paid for a a service which wasn't provided. Get a refund.
(And definitely report the driver!)

She’s year 9, so 14 or so, not 9, but nevertheless, the school needs to be aware of his actions and to take it up with the company he works for.

No it really isn’t 🙄

So how was my response going against your response?

Jeez this thread is just a classic of mumsnets obsession with the OP being wrong in all circumstances. But I am also puzzled why this is even a question, you just can’t drop a child in a random place and tell them to call someone. It’s called safeguarding….

Awful behaviour from the driver.

I'd complain to the bus company - and make it clear it's an official complaint to which you'd like a full response, before you decide whether to contact the Council about it. It doesn't matter that you don't have the drivers name, they'll know who was on that run on that day.

If I didn't have a satisfactory response I'd contact the school to make them aware and then I'd escalate and report the company to the Council.

I imagine she was thrown by the driver saying he'd drop her somewhere random and had a sob when she rang her mum to tell her - before she knew her mum would sort it. Which doesn't seem that odd to me for a 13 year old.

I remember as a very independent and not prone to crying 19 year old, I got stranded when I missed a train connection once. I phoned my dad and burst into tears when he picked up! I was tired and stressed and just had an overwrought moment. It can happen to the best of us.