Or “How Do You Drive One Of Those Things?”

I have a wealth of School Bus stories, but I’ll start with the basics, just how do you drive one of those things?

The simple answer is “quite easily”. They’re big, for sure, but pretty simple beasts and easily handled by anyone who has a mind to do it. Automatic gearboxes, power steering, hydraulic brakes with ABS all round, they’re really not any harder to drive than a car, but you do have to learn the tricks required to make the corners without riding the curbs, and to turn it around without nailing too many mailboxes. In fact in some ways they’re easier to handle than a regular car because you have seven very handy mirrors at your disposal that give you so much more visibility.

To get a licence, though, you do need some special training and that’s down to the fact that apart from the Police and the EMS, school bus drivers are the only people on the road who can stop traffic legally. Those red lights and the extending Stop sign are powerful tools and you really do have to learn to use them wisely. Your cargo is special, too, with up to seventy-two children on board, you have a huge responsibility, when they’re on board, and when they’re approaching or moving away from the bus. What a shame that the pay doesn’t reflect the training and levels of responsibility school bus drivers undertake.

The First Student (my employer) training program was thorough, and it had to tie in with the Ontario licensing programme, which is similarly demanding. Hours driving off-road, trying not to squash plastic cones, hours in the classroom, and hours on the road, before rigorous written and on-road tests to Ministry of Transportation standards. Despite the individual failings of some of the drivers after having attained their licence, you could put your kids on the bus knowing that every driver was trained to a very high standard.

Driving on the road becomes easier with practice, as does understanding how to drive a rigid vehicle nearly forty feet long round some very tight turns, and without clouting another vehicle with the dreaded tail swing, that is the amount the rear overhang of the bus can swing left or right behind you. While you’re driving, you’re also following a pre-set route, with pre-set pickup points, to a fairly tight schedule. Local knowledge helps, but when you start out, or you take on a new route, it can be tough to follow a route, and its stops, often in the dark and often in awful weather. When I started I was covering other drivers’ absences so I could do many different run in a week, and then it was all paper maps and a little light rigged so that you could see it on those dark early mornings. Now it’s an Android tablet PC with the routes downloaded and audibly read back to you as you drive, which is better for all concerned. Of course the down side of that was the driving data collected that was extremely good at catching you if you drove like a dork.

Having mastered all that, then there was the students. The truism that ten percent cause ninety percent of the problems was very true of children on the bus, and with a good bunch of kids you could spend uneventful hours driving around the lanes of the district, almost enjoying it. If you had a few difficult kids, then trying to drive, to navigate and to police the kids was a difficult task. That task was often underestimated by the schools’ administration, and by the School Boards, so working with little support was also not good. However, the ten/ninety rule meant that most times the runs were trouble free.

By the time I’d decided to retire, I could get a new route memorized in two days. I knew the area, the schools and quite a few of the kids, so it all became relatively easy. I had my fair share of incidents (for later posts, I think), but in my seven years driving, I never had a collision and had a completely clear driving record, and of that I was very proud.

More riveting bus stories to come, you lucky people, but I’ll leave you here with the thought that for all my moaning and complaining, I’d always be happy to put my kids, or grandkids, on the school bus.

Or “How To Drive A School Bus”

My successful job application was for the role of School Bus Driver. Twenty-five or so hours a week, on a split shift, bussing the students of Chatham-Kent to and from their schools. I’d never driven a commercial vehicle before, and obviously had never ridden in a North American yellow school bus. But how hard could it be? Training free, but unpaid, so not too bad.

I’d applied months before and heard nothing, but the manager of the local bus company, First Student, called me and asked if I was still interested, and if so, would I come in for interview? I didn’t need asking twice.

At the bus yard, I was interviewed by the Safety and Operations Manager who, having commented that I had filled the many forms in really quickly, gave me a cursory interview, checked my drivers’ licence and told me when I was going to start training! The regulatory stuff regarding the bus drivers’ licence was more tricky, especially was when I applied for the licence, I had to submit a medical and a drugs test. Safety first.

Training went well, on road and off road stuff, and a whole heap of classroom work. Training was undertaken by a couple of drivers, suitably qualified of course, who did that as well as drive bus runs morning and afternoon, so training hours were nicely in the middle of the day. As I remember, it was November and stupidly cold, but hey, this is Canada I guess.

Things ground to a halt, though, when the the licensing people referred my application to the Medical Review Board, on account of my having had a TIA a couple of years previously. Cutting a very long story short, the application was approved months later and in late January 2015 I passed my written and road tests and became an Ontario School Bus Driver.

There’s much to write about that job, which can wait until later. I drove regular bus runs for a year before being elevated to a full time job in the office as Safety Officer. I became a Driver-Trainer (suitably qualified) and worked in the “Wash Rack” cleaning buses for a while. All along, I drove bus routes when the need arose. The pay was lousy, the expectations too high for the compensation, but it was an education, an experience, and a job.

All of that said, though, I’m very happy to be retired now.