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?!

I'm sorry OP, that must have been an absolutely awful experience for her and for you. SEN aside, most kids would be thrown and worried to be unexpectedly dropped somewhere they weren't expecting and weren't used to, and left to make their own arrangements. I wouldn't play heavily on the SEN side when you complain, it's unacceptable to abandon any child in a strange place, that's the point.

I'd involve the school safeguarding officer in the complaint, too. Leaving children in a strange place (in the dark!) without handing them over to a suitable responsible adult is a HUGE safeguarding no no, anybody with common sense would know that. He was a bloody fool for what he did, including refusing to give his name, as he is clearly going to be easily identified by his employers by which route he was driving at the time.

The bus not showing up or being unable to run is annoying but it’s not unsafe.

Your child will be at home or at worst they will be at their local stop wondering why the bus isn’t there - they can easily get home once it’s clear bus isn’t coming.

If the bus breaks down then the driver presumably stays with the bus and all the kids can stay too until collected.

Any of these are far better from a safety perspective than leaving a child unattended a long way from home.

ETA: and all the issues you list affect private coach services too!

Having read tge ops post more carefully, she was at 'new' stop before tge kid in question.She was not on her own at all, no safeguarding risk! Saying the driver would have driven off without seeing the passengers had arrangements in place, seem to be supposition.

He was planning on leaving her at the stop with the other children who would also get off there.

Yes, OP did manage to get there in time in the end, but it was unclear this would be possible when child first rang OP, and driver still intended to drop child nonetheless.

😂😂

I would have gone batshit crazy at the bus driver and the bus company.

I pay for a private bus to bring my daughter home. If they deviated from the normal route and dropped my daughter elsewhere with no adult present, I would have doubled up on my batshittery.

My theory is, I've paid for a service, for the bus company to take and bring my daugher from A to B and return from school. Unless road works or bad weather ( or occasionally, the bus breaks down ) dictate, do not deviate from the normal route. And drop her off at the normal stop, not some 15 minutes drive away. If I wanted her dropped off 15 mins away, I wouldn't be paying for the service.

And I'm not bothered about the driver being over his allocated driving quota. That's not my problem. That's a problem for the bus company. They should have got someone who wasn't over their alloted time or employ more people.

I'd complain to the bus company and demand this does not happen again. There's no excuse.

Not acceptable. The firm are providing a service to get the child home. That's what they need to do. Maybe in this situation the driver did the only thing he could, but not making sure that the driver has a enough hours to complete the job if there is traffic is ridiculous. The firm should lose the contract.

Surely if he had been at risk of going over his hours, he would have said that?!

How naive can a person be?!! He drives a bus because it's his job and he gets paid for it.

Do people do volunteer shifts at orphanages?!

Where did the "lots of other children" come from?!!

If he was out of his legal driving hours, then he should stop, call a relief driver and wait there until that driver arrives.

If he is over the hours he is contracted to drive for the school, then he needs to take that up with them, there should be overtime for that.

Neither of these things is a justifiable reason for dumping a child where they can't walk home, where they may be waiting ages for someone to come get them, and relying on their friends or whoever else gets off at that stop (who may not be their friends at all!) to wait with them.

From off the bus?

OP has said her DD was dropped at a "normal" stop where other children get off.
She also mentioned other children that go to her daughter's normal stop.
DD was not the only child that was left on the bus. The nature of school buses is that they require a certain number of children to be economically viable and the bus company would be quickly shortening the route without enough children travelling to later stops.

(This is exactly what happened to my DB and SIL who now have to drive 15 minutes further to their school bus's new nearest stop)

The OP said she was able to speak to the driver 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 so the DD wasn’t left alone in the dark.
A child in Year 9 will either be 13 or 14. If they only turned 13 3 weeks ago then they would be in Year 8. They could have actually turned 14 on 1st September.

The OP said "other children" not "lots of other children".

And I am presuming that they were being dropped off at their normal stop and they could walk home from there.

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

We know nothing of the sort. OP was able to talk to him because she made it to the bus stop just in time.

A contingency plan is not needed when there is nothing blocking the route between where the bus is and where it needs to go to. If the issue is drivers' hours, then the contingency should be either sending a different driver or arranging a second driver. Expecting children's parents to bail the company out at no notice can never be the contingency plan for this eventuality.

lol. you're joking, right?

Oh, come off it. Grown adults have been know to cry at "situations". This is a child with strongly suspected autism suddenly catapulted into a potentially dangerous situation and not knowing whether she'll be able to access any help.

It's quite extraordinary how people manage to shoehorn blame onto a disabled child rather than contemplate the possibility that an OP might have valid cause for concern.

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.

No, OP was fortunately able to arrive before he got there, so he can't be given credit for waiting for her. He told the child "he would drop her somewhere 15 minutes away and she would have to have someone pick her up" and he told OP that he couldn't take her child to the home stop because it would take too long. So presumably if it would take too long to drive her, it would also take too long to wait with her as he did not know even whether anyone was available to pick her up.

This isn't a standard school bus organised by a local authority or a bus company. It's a privately organised bus catering for one school. I doubt that it has the option to be fussy about its route.

"Lots of other children" is a red herring anyway. It doesn't help OP's daughter that she gets off somewhere she doesn't know with a group of other children who fairly obviously won't be hanging around to give her moral support because they will be carrying on with their journey home.

Please complain to school, bus company and the council. He put her at risk. Partner has done london buses, national express and school bus driving. Yes national is limited to hours can do, but during this crazy weather you can put in a report to state the date and they will see it was crazy with weather. School bus drivers are not governed by these limits yes he might do taco driving elsewhere but they would of known this as track it and knew traffic was bad. So you really need to complain.. don't let it lie, parents pay alot for these services so the child should be dropped off where it states on route. If the road was closed then they would make changes clearly but due to traffic he is a pathetic man for treating a minor in such a way.

This doesn't mean he is absolved of safeguarding. You can't dump a child somewhere random and leave them there

Most grown women I know would be stressed at being abandoned somewhere random in the dark and having to wait by the side of the road for some time.
At 13/14 I would have been terrified.

More likely 13 if we are getting specific

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