Posted on 11/09/2006 6:57:47 AM PST by wintertime
BUFFALO, N.Y. - A six-year-old New York boy remains hospitalized after a school bus dragged him along a road for about 60 feet.
They say the bus doors closed on the boy’s backpack, and the driver drove away without realizing the boy was stuck. The bus finally stopped when other children on the bus alerted the driver to the situation
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Superintendents, principals, and teachers are NEGLIGENT to allow children on buses without an adult to supervise the children in the back of the bus, help them get in and out of the bus safely, and to cross the street.
Just last week, a 6 year old crossing in front of the school bus, for some reason, suddenly turned back, and was crushed by his bus.
This type of crushing accident happened in my rural county about 15 years ago. A 5 year old girl was crushed under her school bus when she stooped to pick up something she had dropped. The parents in the county begged the school board and superindent to allow parent volunteers on the school buses. They were refused, and given the excuss of insurance problems.
Sadly, the exact same type of incident occurred the following year to a 6 year old. This time the school board responded by placing a swing-away bar in front of the buses that makes less likely for this accident to occur since the bus driver can see the children in front of the bus better. But...still no parent volunteers to help the children negotiate the traffic in the street, to prevent accidents from rough housing or bullying, or getting their clothing stuck in the door, or falling under the wheels of the school bus.
What if this were a business or company and it was KNOWN that a certain type of accident occurred and the company did absolutely nothing to correct it? Those CEOs would be looking at jail time!
It is long past time. Principals, teachers, and supervisors should be held to the EXACT same safety standards as parents and businesses! If social workders, and police would be knocking on the door of a CEO or parent, then they should be at the office doors of these school officials!
Parents. Seriously consider the safety of your child on the school bus. Could they get their clothing caught in the door? Could they drop an item in front of the bus, stoop to pick it up, and then be unintentionally run over by their bus driver? Could your child be injured on the bus due to rough play or bullying? Could they be raped or sexually harrassed?
Parent. Ask yourself. Is your child safer in your car, in a seat belt, for the short time it take you to drive your child to his school?
Parents. Don't be fooled by the the bogus stats that school defenders use. They do not compare the safety of children in their parent's car while riding to school during school transport time. They compare school bus safety stats to children in all cars, at all times, and driving to all places. This is a bogus comparison.
What is valid is YOUR child's safety in YOUR home and in YOUR car. The safest place for YOUR child is likely with YOU, at home. They will not be dragged or crushed by their bus. YOUR child will not be bullied, sexually harrassed, raped, hazed, or murdered at school.
This is just one more reason to homeschool.
Great moments in government schooling.
When I was a kid, the bus driver would stop the bus, open the doors, get out of the bus and make sure all kids got safely to the sidewalks. Then he'd get back in, close the doors, and keep driving.
These days they just drop the kids off as if it was a city transit bus.
They put six year olds on school buses now? Isn't that kind of young?
I ride the bus back and forth to work. Yesterday, a mom and her two little ones were getting off the bus through the rear door (it's actually in the middle of the bus). The mom was having a hard time getting the door open. The kids had backpacks on. They were partially out the door when the bus started moving. It's not supposed to do that when the doors are open, but it did. We all screamed at the driver to stop and he slammed on the brakes. Luckily, mom and kids were not hurt but they were shook up. It could have been a tragedy!
Yeah, kids never get into freak accidents at home. Never happens.
Yeesh.
I can remember having to watch the school safety video with my kids when they started school and being told that the driver was not suppose to go until he could see all of the kids away from the bus. All it would take is a couple of seconds to wait and make sure they were ok.
A couple of weeks ago we had to stop on a fairly busy street for a school bus, it was one of the handicap ones, totally understand waiting for 5 minutes while they load the kid in a wheelchair, not quite sure why we had to wait over 7 minutes longer after he was loaded and the 3 blocks of backed up traffic was getting a little irritated, but when the driver finally pulled away, she took out the 4 mail boxes and several trash cans with the ramp she forgot to put up. Everyone just started ignoring the stop sign on the bus and went around her.
This is very sad and the driver was negligent. Regardless, why kids wear backpacks is beyond me.
I remember in junior high some kids were acting rowdy on the bus. The driver pulled up to the stop, which was flooded because of the rain, and dropped off all the kids from that stop. Wouldn't move forward until we were all off, even though it was three feet of water. Even the kids who had done nothing wrong were punished.
time to ban backpacks.
I only had to read this far before knowing whose post it was.
Have a good day wintertime!
I guess I am confused...are you saying that the school officials are more responsible than the driver? My kids rode school buses in the past, now they are homeschooled so we don't have that problem, but when they did, they had a really bad bus driver one year, several complaints about her, so it did not take long for me to make the decision to take them myself. Unfortunately, not everyone can take them. I am continuously shocked when I am next to a bus and the kids are out of control on that bus, throwing things, hanging out of the windows, screaming, these things could distract a driver, but there is no excuse for not noticing a kids backpack caught in the door when you are sitting right next to that door.
By the way, a school bus stopped in front of my grandmothers house once while the driver called dispatch and told them she was not driving any farther until they got someone over there to monitor the kids because their behavior was so bad, didn't take to long for them to get someone over there. I say good for her.
If you KNOW of a problem, do training to prevent it, hold seminars, and more training, and someone still gets it wrong....are you responsible? Or is the person who did it wrong? Guy dies at a meat packing plant, turns out he was suppose to be wearing a protective face mask, he wasn't, if the mask was available and he was told to wear it, it's HIS fault, if the mask was not available, it is MANAGEMENTS fault. Back to the school bus, if the training is there, if they are told when hired and reminded continually to make sure the kids are away from the bus, it is the DRIVERS fault. If they are not trained and just given the keys to a bus, common sense would say make sure the kids away from the bus, but I guess than you could say it was the school officials fault.
nude, integrated ,forced busing. that's the answer.
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