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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

I think I AM being unreasonable, but tell me WHO to be unreasonable with.... if anyone

61 replies

fryalot · 12/02/2009 22:05

It started snowing this morning.

By lunch time it was really quite heavy and by 3.00 the local school was shutting early and the bus refused to come to collect the children.

dd1 goes to the high school 8 miles away and gets the school bus back. The bus set off at 3.30 as usual, but apparently some of the kids on the bus were messing about throwing snowballs on the upper deck so the bus driver decided to return to school.

The children were told off by a teacher and the bus then set off again.

The bus was then an hour behind schedule. Not too much of a problem usually... BUT by that time the roads were completely impassable and the bus stopped about 3 miles away from home. It was then stranded until one of our neighbours with a 4 x 4 went to the rescue and took all the children home (making about four trips)

Now, I am obviously grateful to the nieghbour for getting dd1 home safely. I don't condone the bad behaviour of some of the children on the bus and obviously something had to be done about it.

But... the lateness of the journey meant that an extra hour's worth of really heavy snowfall made the roads impassable and if my neighbour hadn't been out and about in his 4 x 4 ten children would have been stranded miles away from home.

SO: AIBU to ring the school to either complain or ask what the provision is for getting the children home if the bus can't get through, or should I just be happy that everything was ok and hope it doesn't happen again.

Sorry this was so long, I got a bit carried away.

OP posts:

mrsblanc · 12/02/2009 22:48

my dad was a school bus driver.
He found that aspect of the job (keeping unrully kids under control very stressful )

out of interest do you have to pay for the bus?
When my kids were little and got the bus we did not have to pay.
I always thought it was amazing we did not have to pay. Incredibly convenient to get kids collected and delivered right to the door . We did have the odd mishap, with pick ups and drop offs/bad weather but I always thought that was a small price to pay.
I really would not make a fuss .

Must have been v stressful for the driver
And you know what it is like getting stranded in snow - you never quite believe it will happen till the very last minute!

newgirl · 12/02/2009 22:58

I think the issue here was the kids behaving badly had no idea of the consequences their messing about had

you could discuss it with the school to say that poor behaviour meant that the driver had to return - as a result the bus was very late, which is not fair to other kids on the bus. That is bad enough in my mind.

The snow added to the drama and has highlighted that kids messing about can be serious and the needs to be more supervision.

BalloonSlayer · 13/02/2009 08:17

"bus refused to come to collect the children" - I suspect that was because the actual bus was booked to do something else and couldn't get to the school any earlier.

I guess you might want to ask about the setting up of contingency plans for when a bus is needed earlier.

Children throwing snowballs - you could complain about this as they should be supervised getting on to the buses by staff. It should not (in an ideal world) be possible for them to secrete snowballs on board. Is the bus heated btw? Would be astonished to think that snowballs would still be in one piece after 20 mins (assuming 20 mins of journey, 20 mins journey back and 20 mins telling off making up the 1 hour behind).

MrsSeanBean · 13/02/2009 08:24

I don't have school age DC so I apologise in advance if this is a silly remark, but I didn't realise it was the school's responsibility to get children to/from school. If there is a bus contractor, is it not their responsibility? If the bus became stranded, could the emergency serviced not have helped? Not sure how, given the number of children probably involved, but maybe they could have called in a fleet of 4x4s, if there had been none available from neighbours. Again, sorry if I am way off track.

twentypence · 13/02/2009 08:48

The bus driver also stranded himself - presumably. He also had a really crap day. I'd leave him alone.

I would contact the school, because the head needs to get heavy with the idiots who really caused this mess. Their parents have probably just decided to blame the bus driver or the school or anyone except their little darlings.

GrinnyPig · 13/02/2009 09:04

I think with the benefit of hindsight then the driver possibly should have noted the names of the troublemakers and reported them to school next day.

Last week DD1 was sent home early from school. The buses turned up and drove back (12 miles) in blizzard conditions. Ironically, if they'd left it an hour the conditions improved dramatically and driving would have been much easier.

Policy at DDs school is that if there is bad behaviour on the bus it turns round and goes back to school. Troublemakers are turfed out and their parents are called and asked to make arrangements to pick them up.

I'd hate to be a school bus driver...

MarmadukeScarlet · 13/02/2009 09:14

The driver was driving in already difficult circumstances (the snow) and was distracted by misbehaving children.

If he had continued on his route, been distracted by a child's behaviour momentariy and crashed the bus how would everyone be reacting now?

Original poster

fryalot · 13/02/2009 09:19

thanks for these new messages.

Have slept on it and decided that I am glad she got home safely and am not going to take it any further.

I will, however, be suggesting to her that she stays out of any bad behaviour on the bus just in case I should need to complain about bad behaviour at some future point.

The roads are still bad today so she has not gone in to school again today.

BalloonSlayer - I was trying to set the scene about how bad the conditions were, it was two separate buses. The local primary school bus refused to come for the primary school children at the usual time because the driver wouldn't drive through the snow and ice. Yet an hour later, the high school bus driver took an hours detour before driving the same roads that were even worse than they had been earlier on.

Your 20min x 20min x 20min time estimate is about right.

MrsSeanBean - no, you're quite correct, it is the bus company's responsibility to get the children home, however I think they remain ultimately the responsibility of the school until they actually get home because the bus is contracted by the school. (I think) and yes, probably if random neighbour bloke hadn't gone to the rescue with his 4 x 4 the emergency services would have to have been called.

OP posts:

titchy · 13/02/2009 09:30

Is nobody concerned about some random (OK I know it was a parent but could have been anyone IYSWIM) guy ended up taking home a load of kids in his car? No police check, presumably no permission sought from parents.....

I certainly think a contingency plan is in order.

elliott · 13/02/2009 09:36

We're talking about high school kids here aren't we? I would have thought the responsibility for getting to and from school ultimately is the parents, not the school's or the bus drivers.
I remember when I was at high school and the school closed we all just had to walk home because the buses weren't running. No mobiles in those days either!

marcolini · 13/02/2009 09:36

£The disruptive kids should be banned from the bus as it was their actions which lead to the delay. Once their parents are inconvenianced they might explain how to behaviour properly.

bellavita · 13/02/2009 09:44

titchy - where squonk lives - tis small village and I think she knew random neighbour bloke

keepingitRia · 13/02/2009 10:01

I'm a bit late with this but I would mention to the school what had happened, not blaming the bus driver.

DS1 was late home the other night because of general naughtiness on the bus. I believe the driver just stopped until they behaved enough to carry on. No snow then BTW.
yesterday they were sent home because of snow. The school organises the buses/the buses arrange to go early - I'm not sure which, although I think the decision is based on getting to the more remote villages - but they don't inform parents. We find out when they arrive home.

Our buses do have a "bus monitor" though, who I think (poor devil) is responsible for limiting silliness.

Original poster

fryalot · 13/02/2009 10:31

titchy - dp and I did discuss random stranger bloke picking up the children and it crossed my mind that without a crb he shouldn't have been driving the children around.

BUT... it was that or have them walk 3, 4 or 5 miles home in nearly a foot of snow.

So we decided that, whilst a contingency plan may be needed from the school, we can't in all seriousness complain about the kindness of him driving for miles to get kids he didn't even know home. He does know my daughter and brought her home in the first trip he went back for children he did not know. Had I not known him, I think I would just have been really grateful that he brought her home.

OP posts:

titchy · 13/02/2009 10:41

Squonk - I agree, and in the circumstances I'd have done the same. However I think this just reinforces the need for the school and / or the bus company to have a back up plan. Can you imagine one of the kids had been attacked by the good samaritan, or more likely had beenn involved in an accident? I'd want reassurances that this would NEVER happen again.

and both bus company and school shodl eb accountable - bus company cos that's it's job, and school cos ot's theri responsibility to make sure their contractors are up to the job.

Original poster

fryalot · 13/02/2009 11:34

this may explain how bad it was last night

OP posts:

keepingitRia · 13/02/2009 11:45

do you live quite near there squonk, or nearer York? I live on the coast near there. DH said our village was cut off early evening.

Original poster

fryalot · 13/02/2009 11:47

I live right in the middle of there.

12 miles away from the coast I think.

I didn't realise we had a current mumsnetter that close to me... we should have a summer meet up on the beach!

OP posts:

Kathyis6incheshigh · 13/02/2009 11:53

Hello Squonk. I agree with Twentypence - it is not necessarily and issue to ignore because the school has to have a go at the kids who caused the trouble so they know that they were potentially getting everyone into a serious situation. Have sympathy with driver because I can't imagine he took the decision to turn back lightly.

So it was bad on the Wolds then....

Original poster

fryalot · 13/02/2009 11:55

kkkkkaaaaatttttttttttttthhhhhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

yes, yesterday it came down so quickly that it was a foot deep within about an hour. then it carried on coming down.

It still hadn't cleared from last week so it was fresh snow on top of a week's worth of ice.

Have got all three children at home today.

How are you? long time no MN

OP posts:

Kathyis6incheshigh · 13/02/2009 12:05

I'm very well Squonk. Have been working v hard and hardly skiving MNing at all. (The way my teaching was organised at work this year means my whole year's teaching was all from Oct-Feb, so I've been busy for months but things are calming down now.)

It only got to a few inches down here in Vale of York - snowed pretty steadily all yesterday but never that hard and the stuff from before had almost all melted.

bellavita · 13/02/2009 12:31

oh yes squonk - DH said that the roads had been closed at Market Weighton last night, I forgot all about that.

Original poster

fryalot · 13/02/2009 12:52

tis good to see you, kathy. So you're back up in this neck of the woods?

Right, I shall give you a shout next time I'm heading over York way (et tu Bellavita... of course )

OP posts:

bellavita · 13/02/2009 12:54

I don't think Kathy is that far from me, in fact I am sure she is just a couple of miles down the 1079?

Original poster

fryalot · 13/02/2009 12:55

oooh!!!!

(again)

OP posts:

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