I recently joined the ranks of the Juab School District bus drivers. This surprises and humors me. Never in all my days on Earth had I ever envisioned myself driving a school bus. I suppose it’s fitting for a man with eight children. When hauling my children my minivan is practically a school bus. But it isn’t the same at all.
I went through forty hours of classroom and driver training not counting the time I spent studying the Commercial Drivers License (CDL) book. During this training I actually parallel parked a 40 foot bus. I haven’t parallel parked a car in thirty years. The training was good and has certainly made me a more conscientious driver.
The scariest part of becoming a school bus driver is the stories I hear from my own children. You see, I am not a regular school bus driver; I am a substitute school bus driver. I have been told they get no respect. The drivers with the regular routes run their busses as if they were their own little kingdoms. They have to. Everyone reading this knows what can happen on a bus if there aren’t rules that are enforced. When a substitute takes one of these routes for a day many of the kids see an easy mark. The government has fallen and they want to see what they can do with the resulting power vacuum. My daughter told me that one substitute just turns up the radio and lets the kids go crazy while he hurries to each of the stops and the final prize of an empty bus.
I had my first substitute run the other morning. I went on a practice run a few days before to get to know the route. The bus driver I was substituting for was very responsible and had selected a student who knew the route well and who got off last to be my guide. I needed this since I would be doing the route backwards from the way she was showing me that morning. On the practice run the kids were pleasant and well-behaved.
The afternoon of my run came. My first challenge came in figuring out how to open and close the door. I had driven four different buses up to this point, but this bus was different from them all. Luckily I had left enough time to get it figured out without being late for my first pickup. I pulled into the elementary school bus lane behind four other busses. They were all veteran drivers. I definitely felt my rookie status. The moment came and the kids came streaming out of the school. I greeted each of them as they got on the bus. I noticed that each noticed I was a substitute. There was this look in their eye, like prisoners eyeing the new warden. Immediately I heard complaints about kids sitting in the wrong seats.
“Sit in your regular seats,” I say, exerting my wardenship. But I don’t know which seats are theirs so I can’t enforce anything. Eventually the kids sit and just in time for over the radio I hear Red Leader say, “Let’s roll.” The busses leave the lane like a convoy, only they all turn right and I am told to turn left. My little, eight-year-old guide is present which brings me comfort. I get a little concerned, however, when I see her hunker down in her seat with a video game.
I make another pickup at the high school and then take off to deliver my load of precious cargo. I remembered where my next stop was and figured out I was going to get there. I couldn’t remember how the regular driver gets there, but it won’t matter. My precious cargo thinks differently. As I turn right from the right-turn lane of the school parking lot a horrified cry goes up from every student on the bus.
“No, Left! Turn left! You go left!
The cry was so loud and frantic that against my better judgment I did a J-turn in my forty foot bus. I did check for traffic first and did not cause any of those famous CHIPS forty car pileups.
In my inside rear-view mirror I saw a student standing up. This is a safety concern and I called to him to sit down. He did. This is when one of the cutest little girls of about ten-years-old spoke up. She sat a few seats back from me.
“You aren’t a very good driver,” she said.
“Oh?” I asked.
“Good drivers don’t tell us what to do.”
She looked like such a nice girl. I had repeat to myself twice what she had said to decide that she was wrong. About this time a seven-year-old boy comes running up the aisle with a pencil that he is going to throw in the garbage. We are on the highway driving sixty-five mph. It occurs to me that he shouldn’t be running up the aisle, but he does it with such confidence that I don’t say anything as I wonder. It’s the other kids that remind him that he was breaking a safety rule. I know he wouldn’t have tried that with the regular driver. Six-year-old: 1. Fifty-two-year old: 0.
When we reach Levan I hear a frantic, “Turn here! Turn here!” This call went out as we were passing the street at thirty-five mph. My little video game playing guide hadn’t looked up in time.
“I can handle this,” I think. “I will just go around the block.”
The kids see a weakness and pounce. “Just let us off right here,” they cry. “This is way closer.” I know better and keep going to their cries of dismay. Finally I end up out on Powell Lane with one little student left. She looks like she is four, but she must be at least six or seven. She doesn’t give me any trouble. I drop her off at her long lane and see her mother waiting at the door. Then, with a wonderfully empty bus I drive the thirteen miles back to bus compound. I had survived my first run.