School bus driver refused to drop my daughter home

[Theherringbones]

My year 9 daughter gets the school bus service home from school everyday. Its a private service for her school only and It’s about a 50 minute journey.

Tonight there is an unusual amount of traffic on the roads. The driver refused to drop my daughter at her (home) stop as it would take him too long to get there. He said he would drop her somewhere 15 minutes away and she would have to have someone pick her up. She was in tears in the phone to me. The usual 50 minute trip took him about 80 minutes.

The bus stop she was dropped at is a clear run to our home as it’s the back roads and there was no traffic on them. I know that it would have taken him an extra 15 minutes to drop her home, but it is his job!

I was stuck in the middle of the traffic in the opposite direction, trying to collect my other child and had to make all sorts of crazy arrangements with friends to get to her. Luckily I made it just in time.

I had words with him and he was completely rude, ignorant, aggressive and arrogant about it. He refused to give me his name and said it would have take him too long to take her home (it would have been an extra time for him) and there wasn’t another option.

How can a private bus service that is the only reason she can attend this school, refuse to drop her home? Am I being unreasonable or should he have dropped her home, no matter what?!

The OP's daughter was dropped off at a stop 15 minutes drive away from where she was supposed to be dropped off.
That is not a 5 minute walk

This is clearly not the same scenario. And I’m not sure the comments section are exactly a damning indictment of that situation. Most sound like they’re written by troglodytes.

I think it's obviously unreasonable to have left her, and I hope you get some answers when you raise it.

This post sums up Mumsnet 😂

I’m pretty sure he actually hauls the bus himself, like a heroic wee pony. And he pays the parents, not the other way around, while the children get out little riding crops and make him go faster while taunting him with their tiny voices.

Brilliant 😆😆😆

So totally true as well.

That there are no phone boxes is something people are completely blind to.

I thought the OP spoke to him via her daughter’s phone, not in-person, and the daughter was left at the bus stop with the assumption that she would be safe because other children were getting off there, too.

We do not know that he was going to abandon them. That's something posters have made up. We actually do know that he didn't just drop them off and drive away because OP was able to go and talk to him. It's equally possible that he would wait until they were picked up or until a replacement bus/driver/taxi could be provided.

Right, so instead of driving the extra 15 mins to do the contracted trip to her home stop, you think he was intending to kick back and stop still at the unscheduled stop for an unpredictable length of time until everyone could make alternative arrangements in heavy traffic?

Yes quite possible, if the issue was related to driving hours (and the fact that the traffic conditions would mean a normal 15 minutes drive would take much longer than that). Bus drivers normally are in contact with their depot. He would have likely had good information about the state of the roads and times to travel between places.

OP has said that she didn't speak to the driver on the phone. So it must have been in person i.e she got to the bus stop before the bus drove away.

If someone left my kid far from home by the side of the road in the dark I would fucking hunt him down.

Did you bother to read the thread before digging through google for something you think is a "gotcha"?

I didn't dig, Google linked. More likely OP has distorted the information to avoid being identified and it is the same thing.

But regardless, there are always too sides, and a senior school child needs to be able to navigate situations without crying.

Or.... That is not the OP....

I didn't dig, Google linked. More likely OP has distorted the information to avoid being identified and it is the same thing.

You think it's more likely that Op has entirely changed every detail of the situation other than "traffic", "bus", and "daughter" so that she can post it on MN (for what, drama?), than there being two instances of drivers behaving poorly due to traffic this week?

But regardless, there are always too sides, and a senior school child needs to be able to navigate situations without crying.

A child, senior school or not, should not be put in the position Op's DD was, particularly not when they are vulnerable.

Yes, everything is a learning moment, but being so dismissive of a likely autistic child's reaction to something stressful she hasn't experienced before, is deeply unpleasant.

YANBU. I’m concerned about the driver’s lack of responsibility for the children in his care tbh. The fact he thought it was acceptable to leave 13 year olds stranded so far away from home in the dark, in an area where they can’t safely walk home anyway is quite worrying. Complain to both the school and bus company.

And again, there are zero counter arguments. There aren't two sides to everything. Child safety trumps everything.

Just ask the parents of Daniel Morcombe, slaughtered by a pedo aged 13 because the bus driver was in a hurry and chose not to stop.

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

This is actually epic 👏👏👏

So, yep. No argument possible.

Child safety wins.

this, as other posters have pointed out. What are the chances that a private bus driver has been driving constantly since about 5.30am? He didn't even use that excuse himself, which you think he would have as it's a pretty clear justification so it's completely bizarre that posters are making stuff up to defend him. The 9 y.o vs year 9 stuff also isn't relevant because there's no guidance saying at what age it's okay to leave a child alone, so if he did it to OP's 13/14 y/o there's no guarantee he wouldn't have done the same to a younger child. 15 mins drive could be 10 miles walking if OP didn't have a car or was completely unable to get there, seriously what was her dd supposed to do? What if she didn't have a phone or it wasn't charged? It's completely irresponsible of him

There's also the assumption that someone would just be able to come and pick her up. When no one is paying for a private bus if it was that easy to just go and pick someone up.

Sure, in the OP's case it was an issue of logistics. But it just as easily could have been a single parent looking after a sick child or the only parent at home was a non-driver with the other partner away, or unable to leave home for one of many other reasons. Not everyone has a support network or a car and the ability to get there.

He actually did say some thing to OP about driving for extra time (which may or may not mean he was over hours).

OP says this bus is normally due in at 7.15pm. So even it it was on time, which it wasn't due to the delays, he would only have had to start at 9.15am to be over the 10 hours of driving time. Which doesn't sound that unlikely for a bus driver.

And he did not leave the child alone. OP arrived to collect her while he was still there. None of us on here know if he would have left the child alone or what he would have done if no one could collect her. People asserting he would have just left her are the ones "making stuff up".

It was completely irresponsible of the bus driver to drop her off a long way from her home in the dark without ascertaining that someone would be there to meet her. I would be raising hell if it was me.

In your shoes, I’d create merry hell over this as it’s a serious safeguarding error. Surely there must be training provided for the drivers around what to do in the event of breaking down or a road being closed etc?

Not in U.K. We’re rural with country roads and no pavements and DS goes to the local secondary school which is about 7 miles away in the main town.

Our school bus is a run by a private company and paid for by the local authority. It collects DS en route outside our house and drops him back after school. It usually takes around 45 mins.

The local provider is very reliable since they took over the route 3 years ago from the main coach company (roughly equivalent to National Express) and they use very modern coaches and I honestly can’t imagine the drivers ever leaving a child stranded miles away from home. The previous provider used older (knackered) buses which broke down occasionally. However, they’d never leave a child to find their own way home.

You realise a lot of children don't go to school on private transport but on regular service buses. .My LEA issued bus passes for service buses for the 7 mile journey from our small village to school.Sometimes they dont turn up or break down or the road is closed.The parents just have to pick up the slack because there's only 1 or 2 buses a day!