School bus driver refused to drop my daughter home

What has the school said? There would be a person in charge of transport - the bus driver would have their emergency contact number. As other’s said he might have run out of legal hours of driving (they would do other jobs during the day) but he should have waited with them / had his first send out an emergency driver instead of ask several parents to come to that same bus stop.
I don’t care if your daughter is in year 9 or year 13 - as a parent you are expecting the bus to drop her off at an agreed bus stop on a service you paid for - appalling he dropped them off at the wrong bus stop.

The bus driver didn't know the OP would be able to collect her.
No buses went to her home from that bus stop.
It is the bus driver's job to drive the children to the designated bus stops, not to just abandon them somewhere.

What response did you get from the school and bus company OP?

This post in itself involves yet more misrepresentation of the facts.

Only a couple of posters made the age mistake, it may look like more because people keep responding to the same post. At the time he told the child he wasn't taking her to her stop, neither he nor the child knew her mother would be able to make it in time. I really don't see why it's somehow OK to leave a child at a bus stop just because other children are getting off at the same one - surely it's obvious that they won't be staying there with her?

OP was only able to make it by the skin of her teeth and by interrupting her journey to collect another child and making all sorts of complicated arrangements with friends to collect the other child. She might well have been much further away or in a situation where she couldn't drop everything to come to collect. What was the driver going to do if she hadn't been able to get there? Instead of being apologetic he chose to be rude, evasive and confrontational.

The mental gymnastics exhibited by some posters in their eagerness to kick the OP and her child are quite something to behold. Worthy of Olympic gold, really.

This is so blatantly unacceptable that I'm honestly shocked that aome people on this thread are making out it was completely fine!

It works both ways though.

There have equally been an awful lot of posters who have turned this into the bus driver abandoning a 9 year old on their own in a random place miles away from anywhere and expecting them to walk 2 hours home in the dark.

Not a 13 year old dropped off at a normal bus stop with lots of other children where mum was there to collect.

This.

From the sounds of it its a for profit company closed door ( ie not picking up the public) bus.

No way the driver should have done this, it would be a final written warning and possibly the sack when I was driving.

So many posts on here saying "she had her phone on her", i.e. it's not a problem.
Interestingly on the threads where schools ban children bringing phones into school at all (rather than banning them from class, collecting them in etc) you get endless posters bashing the OP and saying the child doesn't need a phone for the journey to and from home. Yes, they do, for incidents like this and no, there aren't phone boxes all over the place like when I was at school in the 90s.

Traffic problems are entirely predictable. If the hours issue was the reason here, the fact is that this driver went out so near the end of his hours that only 30 minutes would have taken him over. It's up to the contractor to arrange their staffing and shifts to ensure that doesn't happen.

It simply isn't an excuse for putting a child in a potentially dangerous situation. Blaming the child is just ridiculous.

It’s really really tedious.

I worked as an ops manager for a large bus company for nearly 20 years and also a qualified transport manager. It is unlikely although not impossible that the driver was close to his driving hours for the day, there are exceptions for extenuating circumstances, plus the traffic commissioner who oversees the regulation of bus drivers and operators would be unlike to fine the driver or operator if they could demonstrate that the driving hours had been exceeded due to circumstances out of their control and safeguarding. A relief driver might be an option but if traffic was an issue I suspect that it wouldn't have resolved the problem. If the service is under 50km then domestic driving hours would apply and not eu and therefore tachograph records aren't relevant. The driving hours also differ under the regulations. It would be interesting to know Op if the service is operated under contract or is run directly by the school, vehicle type is also relevant. Lots of school bus drivers do set runs with split shifts as the spread over duty time is 16 hours.
Ultimately the driver should not have done this to your daughter and you are right that it's a safeguarding issue and one that would attract a disciplinary sanction. If you want to pm me happy to help.

That’s totally unacceptable of him. Your poor DD! If someone dropped me off in an unfamiliar location in the dark a couple of hours from home I’d be very frightened, I can’t believe anyone is suggesting your daughter is overreacting! I hope it hasn’t knocked her confidence too badly.

Complain op. I would be utterly furious. He's paid to drop her at a stop. He took another route and decides to leave a child stranded who he is responsible for. Fgs 'law' over hours drive. Common sense should take over then.
What if op couldn't make it in time. Weather was awful yesterday and being far from home can completely overwhelm a child. So unacceptable.

It's getting worse. I've been here years and I've never seen so many posters desperate to post how Obviously Wrong an OP is that they imagine all sorts that's entirely different from what OP has actually posted.

But the child was not unsafe? The driver advised her to call someone, she did, and the driver was able to observe that she was collected by a parent.

People are assuming he would have driven off and left children at the stop regardless of whether anyone picked them up or not, but we have no actual evidence of this.

What if the driver was late for his volunteer shift at the orphanage? He probably only drives the bus out of the goodness of his heart.

Reminder - there are no counter arguments.

Child safety trumps everything.

Ugh, I hate the ‘suck it up, I’d be cool with this’ brigade! As an adult, I would be furious if a bus driver dropped me off at an unscheduled stop miles away from where I was supposed to be dropped, and I imagine most other people would be too. Added to that, children, in the dark, and it is a massive safeguarding risk!! That is shocking, and for a service that you pay for, so far below reasonable standards! I would be fuming OP, and I think it’s quite right that your DD was upset.

I think being dumped somewhere you are unfamiliar with (and sitting on a bus as it drives through is not the same as walking) can be quite upsetting.

We don't know if he asked her to call mum he might not have, he might not even know whether mum can get to her or whether she would have to walk.

I understand what people are saying about hours but there are ways to account for that. Once the driver has worked close to his/ her hours then maybe a second driver should be on board.

Or there should be a contingency plan, something like once you are not able to complete the journey within your driving time a taxi should be called or the students left in a safe place.

Actually I think the hours is a bit of a red herring, he would need to have time to get back to the bus station / depot so would have enough time to get the OP's DD home even if he then had to wait for another driver.

Your poor dd. I’m glad she’s ok. Absolutely complain. My dd would have been exactly the same at that age. She is now 16 and would take such things in her stride much more.

And it absolutely is a safeguarding issue.

Phone the school OP. You won’t be the only parent who does so. Make sure you ask to be informed what happens.

Absolutely unacceptable behaviour from the bus driver.

You know school bus drivers don’t only do that. They drive other buses during the day, not put their feet up and wait for school to finish! Same goes for school crossing guards and milkmen

Clearly unacceptable to leave the child there. But not quite as unacceptable as if she was only 9 years old.