Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

4 year old left on the bus

443 replies

Huskylover1 · 15/12/2017 20:22

Just heard about this on the news.

A 4 year old boy, gets the bus home from school. He misses his stop. Doesn't alert the driver. Driver gets back to the depot and parks up the bus and leaves. Bus driver has now been sacked for this.

In my book, a 4 year old, is way too young to get the bus home. Especially as there was no parent waiting at the bus stop even! Had there been, the parent would have alerted the bus driver that their son was on board, and needed to get off. Usually, this boy makes his own way home from the bus stop, lets himself in, and his parents arrive home from work, shortly thereafter.

Cue lots of moaning by the parents, that they've been let down. No mention from anyone, that perhaps this little boy shouldn't be making this journey alone.

I just can't fathom, how any parent can thinks it's good judgement to let a 4 year old:

  • identify the right school bus to get on
  • realise when he needs to get off
  • walk from the bus stop to home, and let himself in

Bonkers!

OP posts:
Bowerbird5 · 16/12/2017 07:42

Husky
He won't have had to identify the bus, the teachers put them on but usually there is only one bus at these rural schools.

Do you believe every bit of journalism that you watch / read? Read the local one it is likely to be more accurate.

LunasSpectreSpecs · 16/12/2017 07:45

To clarify further - on the BBC news last night the report said that child didn't get very far at all on his walk home. He was spotted by members of hte public walking in an industrial estate, people stopped to help him and contacted police. Nice people.

Yes Inverness is a large town but although the bus ended up there, neither the child nor his school are in the city. That's a total red herring.

bendywindy · 16/12/2017 07:46

poor boy. i expect it's part of a bus drivers responsibility to check the bus is empty every day hence the sacking.

EvilDoctorBallerinaRoastDuck · 16/12/2017 07:47

Exactly Butchy. I think people on here forget that not everyone lives in Surrey. Xmas Hmm

I would say I live in a house, but it's actually a flat. Xmas Grin

bendywindy · 16/12/2017 07:49

and it's not 'a bus' it's a school mini bus with 8 passengers that was supposed to take him home. a lot less UR when you accurately report the facts Hmm

not great anyway but not exactly hopping on a public bus with strangers is it. I'm sure his parents have no other choice.

LizzieSiddal · 16/12/2017 07:57

We live rurally and both dc got the school bus from the age of four. I will say that the parents all stood at a central bus stop for the village. We all knew each other and if a parent wasn’t there for some reason, someone would wait with the child until the patent turned up.

I don’t know if I’d have wanted my child getting the bus if there weren’t other parents around who I knew I could rely on.

I do think it’s right the driver was sacked. It really is gross negligence not to check the bus, especially when he knew his passengers were children.

wonkylegs · 16/12/2017 08:14

I used to get a mini bus to and from school from 5yo (I didn't start school until I was 5) bus didn't even drop us at our house but in the centre of the village and we walked home from there. This was in a village in England. The only 'supervising' adult was the minibus driver. 75% of the kids at my school got minibuses coming in from the surrounding villages, 25% came from the village where the school was located.
I think some of the histrionics shown on this thread are a good example of where our modern society has lost the ability to differentiate between actual and perceived risk and where some of the daftness over H&S comes from. I am a big fan of proper H&S, I work in construction, it literally saves lives in my industry but H&S rules brought in because of hysterical reactions or people not really understanding something drive me nuts as they undermine the real stuff.
In this case there was a supervising adult - the bus driver, he failed to do what he should of and was punished.

Cyclewidow46 · 16/12/2017 08:19

I live in Essex and my 3 children all got a school minibus from reception onwards. This was because the local Catholic School was a certain distance away. This service has obviously been stopped now.
On their school buses there was always a 'chaperone' who's job was to collect the children from the school hall and see them onto the bus and make sure they got off at the correct bus stop. There were 5 minibuses. If no parent was waiting the bus had to wait at the bus stop until parent arrived. This was the rule even up to Year 6.
These weren't large buses, they only transported about 12 children but the presence of the chaperone ensured the driver could concentrate on the road/ driving.
A chaperone could maybe have avoided this situation, however it doesn't excuse driver for not checking the bus at the end.

mrspatel77 · 16/12/2017 08:30

Instead of trying to blame the school and the bus driver etc I think we need to place the blame firmly at the parents door!!!!!

ButchyRestingFace · 16/12/2017 08:33

Instead of trying to blame the school and the bus driver etc I think we need to place the blame firmly at the parents door!!!!!

Why?

“We” do not agree.

Fuckit2017 · 16/12/2017 08:33

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

shitey · 16/12/2017 08:35

The father says he was waiting for it to turn into the cul de sac. My own children get dropped off from a mini bus in rural Scotland. I can see the bus coming from my living room about 300m away and j walk out when I see it.

The bus driver is clearly at fault here.

4 year old left on the bus
TotemIcePole · 16/12/2017 08:37

I read two teachers had to convince him to get in their car, as he knew not to talk to strangers. He must have been terrified, surely.

LizzieSiddal · 16/12/2017 08:39

How did the little boy get out of the bus? He must have been terrified poor mite.

strugglingtodomybest · 16/12/2017 08:51

I think some of the histrionics shown on this thread are a good example of where our modern society has lost the ability to differentiate between actual and perceived risk and where some of the daftness over H&S comes from.

I agree and I'm also quite surprised that people are still coming onto the thread to blame the parents (although they may not have read the whole thread) when it is quite clear that the parents haven't done anything wrong here. The bus driver failed to do his job, how is that the parents fault?

Reallycantbebothered · 16/12/2017 08:51

'Blocks of Flats'......'buses'.....
This thread is like Chinese whispers and shows how 'mis'information can turn the story on its head....
some people on this thread have totally misunderstood the facts here and how school children in rural areas are transported to school in Scotland England and Wales every day...we don't all live in surbiton on the number 10 bus route or have a handy 4x4 in our drive way Confused

Ceto · 16/12/2017 09:30

Yes. And the collective noun for more than 1 flat is a block. Even "cottage flats". more than 1 is a block.

That's just desperate, Mumof56. You tried to suggest that the father was being negligent because he couldn't possibly look out for his son if he lived in a block of flats; in fact you specifically said that the bus couldn't have dropped him at home - quote The bus drives in to his house? How does it fit in the lift in a block of flats? So it's perfectly clear that you assumed that a family living in a flat must be in a large block. Which has now been fairly comprehensively debunked, only you retreat to nonsense about grammar rather than admit that fact.

Also, of course, there is no reason why even a family living in a large block could never be living on the ground floor ...

SaucyJack · 16/12/2017 09:39

Doors and windows don't work any differently in a flat than they do in a house.

I live in a "block of flats" by anybody's definition, and I can assure you it's perfectly possible to look out of the window when you're expecting your child home, and then walk downstairs to the main entrance door and let them in. I've done it myself. Incredible, I know.

LakieLady · 16/12/2017 10:05

Lol at some of the reactions to a small child getting the school minibus home.

Even in the rural parts of Sussex there are plenty of places more than 2-3 miles from the school, and kids are kids are picked up and dropped off by minibus or MPVs contracted from taxi companies. I'd think it's common in lots of counties where there are rural areas.

FluffyWuffy100 · 16/12/2017 10:09

It’s a SCHOOL BUS with 8 children on it! Not a public bus FFS.

Bus diver at fault here. Not the parents.

anothersuitcase · 16/12/2017 10:33

Wow. Read this whole thread and this is the most sensible comment.

You lot are too busy splitting hairs to notice that @pisacake actually shared the recording which categorically proves the OP is full of shit. Also, @Mumof56, you've had enough internet for the day. Pretty much just chatting argumentative bollocks at this point. We should be allowed to confiscate the Internet from people this fucking irritating. Kind of like how pubs can't serve drunk folk

Interesting that op has disappeared since someone posted a link to the interview she was inaccurately referencing.

ToriaPumpkin · 16/12/2017 11:09

I'm currently in North Kessock and at a loose end for half an hour if anyone would like me to drive round taking a video to prove there are no blocks of flats?

ButchyRestingFace · 16/12/2017 11:12

I'm currently in North Kessock and at a loose end for half an hour if anyone would like me to drive round taking a video to prove there are no blocks of flats?

DO IT!!! 👍

@mumof5000

MrDirtyBear · 16/12/2017 11:15

Manufactroversy, pride and prejudice, sense and obvious insensibility. This thread has it all.

Noofly · 16/12/2017 11:28

Has the OP had the good grace to come back yet and admit that they were full of —shit— nonsense in their repeated assertions that the school was in the great big city of Inverness and that the father had said in the BBC interview that they did not arrive home until 10 minutes after the child should have?

I don’t think I’ve ever read a thread with so many bizarre assumptions as this one. Hmm