Yes, the end of the day, and I’m almost home!

“If you ride bus 153 you will ride 190. If you ride bus 150 you will ride 190 also.”

Oh c’mon!

Joking aside, double busing is a very serious issue. Recently, a school bus bush crash in Tennessee caused the deaths of five students while putting six others in the hospital. Double busing is when there are two busloads put onto the same bus at a time.

This isn’t entirely that bad, depending on the amount of students on board.  But it can get very dangerous when there are not two, but three busloads on one bus. Yes, that has happened here in Tallwood, and it has probably happened plenty of times before. This is illegal, as school bus laws state that there can be no more than two people to a seat.

Every day that students get on the bus, they are putting their lives in the hands of the bus drivers. This can already be much on the driver’s hands and even more when there are three busloads on the same vehicle. If you have to sometimes sit three to a seat, it really isn’t that bad. But when there are students sitting or standing in the isle of the bus? It should be abundantly clear something is out of order. In fact, it is borderline deadly!  And that has happened.

There have been two recent school bus crashes, one of which happened right here in Virginia.  The Tennessee crash involved a drunk school bus driver, and that crash resulted in the death of five children with six being hospitalized. There was also another crash in Norfolk.

Buses are designed to prevent riders from flying out of their seats in the case of a crash.  But they can still be unsafe.  As said before, five children were killed in the Tennessee accident. It’s very dangerous, especially when there are students sitting in the aisles.

This is primarily due to the lack of funds.  When something old still works, you tend to use it till it breaks. There is a shortage in funding in schools nationwide, but whatever money they do have is put into a new vending machine or snack bar.

But enough reasoned argument; it’s time for another rant!

Please, for the love of lions, STOP HOGGING SEATS! There have been students hogging seats, and I get it, most of us are shy.  But it is flat out rude to hold a seat with an inanimate object.

A fun little story about my experience on a triple bus: I sat in the mid-back with a friend of mine; I let her have the window seat and I sat outside. Then another student sits down next to me after flinging his bag into my head. He apologized, and that was fine, bygones are bygones… or so I thought. So I scoot over a bit to be courteous, but that wasn’t enough and he kept scooting closer, forcing me to practically sit on my friend with this student on me. I had patience and knew it was only a short ride home… BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

Not only does this student push my friend and me to the wall, but he lays against me and leans back while on his phone.  And I’m sitting there all nice and calm while in my head I’m going, “Yup this is karma for something.” My friend and I just glanced at each other in that awkward situation. This actually happened, it was a nightmare.

In all seriousness, double/triple busing is a serious safety issue, and I don’t want to have to sound Mother Goose of Tallwood, but hey I could be saving lives out there!

There needs to be a more organized procedure for school districts to aid in this situation. Money is an issue, but instead of the school putting in new vending machines or snack bars, just put some money into more buses. It would be safer for everyone and an overall better approach to double/triple busing.