School bus driver refused to drop my daughter home

We aren't in Australia 10 years ago. How many millions of teenagers have managed just fine since.

My point obviously is that the LEA clearly take the view that a child that age is competent to deal with the inevitable disruptions that are part and parcel of travelling on public transport

Exactly. OP got there in time. Her daughter was not abandoned on her own as so many people on this thread keep stating.
Absolutely no one knows what the driver would have done if she hadn't turned up in time. That is for the OP to ascertain with the bus company.
You can't vilify a person on the basis they "might have" done something.

Partner is a school bus driver.... it depends on the service provided.. is the route door to door ( as in home) or is the route usually to the bus stop and he's been driving to home as a courtesy?

We aren't in Australia 10 years ago. How many millions of teenagers have managed just fine since.

Reminder that there's no counter argument and there aren't always two sides. Child safety trumps all.

Remembering Daniel Morcombe, a 13 year old slaughtered by a pedo because a bus driver chose not to pick him up.

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/daniel-morcombe-murder-trial-woman-urged-bus-driver-to-stop-for-13yearold-20140219-330eu.html

The kid is Y9, not 9 years old. Read the original post.

Yes, on routes that they know.

Utter tripe. So you think that a bus and a driver just do nothing all day?

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.

Utter tripe. So you think that a bus and a driver just do nothing all day?

What if a nine year old doesn't have a phone?
None of my nieces and nephews got one til they were thirteen - it was practically a teenager rite of passage - and those of their friends that did were seen as a bit odd or ostentatious

And abandoning a pre-teen on a quiet back road a mile from home?
YANBU - this could have ended up as a very heartbreaking headline

All these people who think it was okay for him to leave a young child at a completely different bus stop are morons.
He is a school bus driver not a friggin HGV driver. He won’t have been driving ALL day. Once he’s done his drops in the morning he then doesn’t drive until pick up time!!
let’s hope none of your children get on his bus and are dropped off in a random place all because he would have to drive for an extra 15 minutes

If she was the only one- then YANBU

YABU If he had other kids- then I think what he did was sensible; he asked her to ring you. I don't get why your daughter would be in tears though unless she has anxiety/etc. He has to get all the kids home, and if he had to do a 15 min diversion for every child, he'd be working over his hours due to the traffic.

My point obviously is that the LEA clearly take the view that a child that age is competent to deal with the inevitable disruptions that are part and parcel of travelling on public transport

My point obviously is that the LEA clearly take the view that a child that age is competent to deal with the inevitable disruptions that are part and parcel of travelling on public transport

Why are you assuming it wasn't his driving hours?

What has this got to do with OP's post? She paid for a bus which is her daughter's only means of getting home from school. It's nothing to do with the LA and nothing to do with what happens in your area.

I'm assuming he meant over his working hours not his tachograph hours. If he wouldn't drive the child to her designated drop off point, because his shift had ended, it seems highly unlikely that he was planning to wait until the mum arrived, because, errr, that was also after his shift ended.

Not "supposition", but very likely!

I don't know whether the driver's actions were ok or not. That's why I've repeatedly said OP needs to have a proper conversation with the bus company.

All we know is that he didn't take OP's DD to her normal stop. There may or may not have been a good reason for this, which OP needs to find out.

I simply don't think people should be viified for things they may not have done. That's why we have an "innocent until proven guilty" system in the UK. An awful lot of posters have claimed a variation of "he dumped her on her own in the middle of nowhere". This is simply untrue. OP's DD was thankfully quite safe at all times. I totally agree that OP should follow up and work out if the correct procedure was followed. But there is no evidence the bus driver did anything he shouldn't have done.

Why are you so keen to make the driver's actions not ok? it's intriguing.

Like the poster you are respondng to, I suspect it is likely the contract is to the stop he dropped her at. For secondary schools it is very unusual for a school bus (private school or not) to collect from the door as part of the contract. It is normally as an obligement they go further.

Has the OP can come back with what the school or bus company said?