People, this is bugging me to no end and I figure that it has got to tick some of you off as well - I drive all over the county for work - darn near all day long, but especially between 6am and 8:45am...which I can safely estimate I drive 355 days a year. These school buses are driving me insane! Bad enough that they do door service and stop at almost every freaking driveway along their route - on busy roads, I understand the reason for it - BUT for goodness sake, there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON for a bus to sit in front of a house and WAIT for a child/children to come outside! If these kids can't be at least in the middle of their driveway or in really bad weather all bundled up and standing just inside their doorway - READY to run out, the bus should move on. Just yesterday, I sat for over 2 minutes on HWY 210 while an idiot bus driver held up traffic with cars over 10 deep stopped behind and in front of them waiting for a child/children that not only never came out, but whose house was dark - not a light could be seen!!! There should be some sort of thing where if the driver doesn't see aa kid stepping out the door once they are at a full stop, they count to 5 and move on!!! Also, when you are behind a bus picking up students and it's light enough to see that the bus is dang near EMPTY, WHY OH WHY does it take so long for a kid to sit their behinds down in a seat so they can get moving? This is a ride to school, not a leisurely Sunday drive where who they sit next really matters. I missed the bus once when I was a kid...I watched it drive away just as I got to my bus stop - I got grief from my dad, who had to drive me to school on his way to work and it never happened again...he made darn sure I got up 15 minutes early and left for the bus stop early after that - no matter what the weather was like...I didn't freeze to death, nor did I melt. Back in those days the drivers didn't even wait for you to be sitting down, you hustled into a seat and they procedded on their way. Had to vent...sorry
Here! Here! I remember those days. The bus drivers were told that if we weren't at least visible, they were to move along. I don't know what they're told nowadays. Frogger
I drove bus in J. County about 10 years ago. I had a route where I would have to stop every 2 seconds and it drove me nuts. On one very busy road, the houses were pretty far back, and this one family never had their daughter ready. I would have to sit there while they put her coat on and buttoned it up etc... then she would stroll down the long driveway... drove me nuts. So I tried just stopping, waiting a second and if she wasnt out the door I would leave. Believe it or not, I got in trouble!!! Several times that lady called the school about me! They would approach me and say "Did you forget to pick up 'X' again today??" I wanted to scream. Cars were lined up behind me as far as I could see and I had to wait and wait.... I feel your pain, but as a bus driver, there is little you can do.
I hear ya zoo. I have just as much of a problem in the afternoon. There is one stop in particular that I swear takes this kid 5 minutes to get off the bus! I know it takes them a minute to get thier stuff and get off, but 5 minutes? I have counted it myself. Not much the bus drivers can do about it either, they just get to deal with all the crap from cars on the road and admin at the schools if they try to do anything about it. Ugh. It is a nightmare.
Why is it that the school system doesn't wise up and make changes then? One day, it wouldn't surprise me if someone doesn't "go postal" over it...talk about provoking road rage...no wonder these kids ride the bus for 45 min to get 6 miles!!!!!!!
warning! noontime RANT follows Not sure how thick the traffic line for pickup is at other elementary schools, but the "car pool" line at Polenta begins just after 2, and by 3 has blocked off Cleveland and a considerable amount of Josephine, long before school is out. And someone should explain just what a carpool is. 90% of the cars I see leaving have just one child visible. I know there are many good reasons why a parent must take/pick up kids from school. Some do actually car pool. I realize that living out here, that school bus service may be less efficient or convenient for some. With the liberty to do burn gas as they see fit, I see many cars idling for what seems an hour, just to get to the car pool line at the entrance. I guess the cost of fuel, both direct and indirect, just hasn't gotten to the point of being expensinve and painful enough that we encourage and develop better alternatives.
I work in Apex and have the same problem on this one street. If I am not there before 7:35 I can forget it. This bus stops literally at every other house (I had time to sit and count one morning). Not only that, the parents want to walk their kids accross the street to the bus and then I have to wait for the parent to basically crawl back to the other side of the street. When I was growing up there were about 10-15 kids at one stop. My my my times have changed!!!
It is ridiculous...and this particular location was brought up at the Town mtg" with the school board etc..... but they didn't offer a solution to make it any better. Maybe they need to add lanes like they have at the new Westview....I don't have to go there, but I don't see traffic out in the highway so seems to be working. Alot of the reason why parents drive or pickup is that many of the subdivisions don't have state maintained road and therefore the buses can't drive into the subdivision. When my children were elementary age they would have had to walk at least a 1/2 mile to wait at the bus stop, by the busy highway. And not that that would've killed them to walk that far, but for safety and weather reasons I arranged my schedule so I could drive them.
I drove a school bus for several years in this county. It all has to do with the VP in charge of buses. Our policy was if you weren't at the street or running down your driveway, we didn't stop. Period. Sure we had mad parents, but so what. Its a privilege to ride a bus, not a right.
What drives me nuts in the morning are the folks who see the signs on 40 that say construction zone 60 mph. THat means slow down. There are men and women working in or near the roads. It makes me crazy when folks go flying by me at 70+. Every year workers are kiled due to idiots like that on our roadways. I wish there were more cops there passing out tickets. Yes, it's a pain but i don't like the thught of hurting someone when they are just trying to do their job.
Yeah, I hear ya, just yesterday I was in the work zone on 40 heading West - I was in the slow lane - doing the 60 MPH posted and I had a freak in a BIG pick-up trying to push me down the road! It's a usual occurance though, I just wonder where the cops are sometimes...what good is a law when there's no one around to enforce it? Maybe if they were more visable people would wise up and mind their P's and Q's.
Problem is most people don't obey the speed limit period. Cleveland sch rd is 45mph... and I have people riding my bumper all the time and flying around me when I'm turning instead of just slowing down! My other pet peeve is people "driving" in the turning lane. Like on 42 in front of Peddler's Village. They get in the turning lane way too early and drive all the way up to the stop light (in that lane). It's a double yellow line, you shouldn't get in the lane (that early) unless traffic is backed up at the time. I'm afraid that one of these days I'm gonna hit somebody because I wait until the proper time to get in the lane, and some terd head is flying up beside me! You can get a ticket for this!!! I've also seen people doing it now to turn in at the Westview school. Okay, I feel better now... for a little while anyway! :lol:
You go Bandmom! It is infuriating the way some drive at that intersection. Rudeness definitely seems to prevail there. I miss the times when that intersections rush hour had as many cars as 5am on a Sunday morning. Oh yeah, what happened to the DMV rule that says, " While turning, you are to turn in the closest lane to you"?
I agree with both of you ^ Another thing that really gets my blood boiling is you ever notice that some of these people speeding can't even control their vehicle? It wouldn't be so dangerous if folks were in vehicles they could handle and also vehicles that could handle what these maniac drivers are attempting to do with them...an example of what I mean is this: Check out how many times in just one outing on a couple of back roads you have an oncoming vehicle that has it's driver-side wheels over the center line as it approaches you. I have this happen at least daily! Yesterday afternoon - on Galilee (sp?) Road...of all things A SCHOOL BUS with KIDS on it coming around that curve almost in the middle of the streatch between 210 and 301 - That sucker was a good foot over the center ON THE BEND as it passed me! This morning a dump-truck on Swift Creek near the JC airport did the same thing! Freaks! ...and people wonder why there are so many accidents :roll: If your tires are leaving your lane - either to oncoming traffic or off the shoulder - for God's sake, slow the hell down! It's sort of a no-brainer that if this happens, you either are a no-driving fool, or you're going too darn fast! Grrrrr
