Bus travel a right or priviledge? [With poll]

Jethro said :

Watson said :

fabforty said :

milkman said :

aceofspades said :

If a bus driver threw my crying 6yo off a bus I would hunt him down a belt the absolute crap out of him.

As would I.

If you let your six year old travel on the bus alone, I think it is both of you who need a belting.

Cue for the helicopter parents…

I agree with you Watson. There’s no reason a 6 year old can’t cant the bus home. I was catching the bus home from school from Day 1 Grade 1. I was 3 months past 5.

Granted, once the bus broke down and I was scared of being lost forever in middle-suburban Brisbane, so I hitchhiked home with a blonde lady in a red sports car, but in general, I agree with you.

While I’m glad you had such a nice lady pick you up (and I bet you’ve been searching for her ever since, in some way or another) there is no way that a child below ten should be catching even a school bus on his or her own. As I’ve posted before here, children under that age simply can not understand traffic and are likely to step out into the road. Letting a five or six year old catch a bus on his or her own makes about as much sense as letting them have a tea party with dishwasher tablets representing cakes.

Letting any primary school child catch a non-school (general) bus is simply irresponsible, and putting convenience before safety. I know I’ll be called over-protective, but there are real dangers for children on their own.

By eleven, I was catching the bus into the city in Melbourne and the train to Flemington for the Royal Melbourne Show on my own, and that is, frankly, quite ridiculous.

The best option is for a child to walk to school with an adult, but given fewer people automatically use the local school (and the extent to which both parents work) this is becoming rarer.

That noise is the background is a Blackhawk, by the way.

Watson said :

fabforty said :

milkman said :

aceofspades said :

If a bus driver threw my crying 6yo off a bus I would hunt him down a belt the absolute crap out of him.

As would I.

If you let your six year old travel on the bus alone, I think it is both of you who need a belting.

Cue for the helicopter parents…

I agree with you Watson. There’s no reason a 6 year old can’t cant the bus home. I was catching the bus home from school from Day 1 Grade 1. I was 3 months past 5.

Granted, once the bus broke down and I was scared of being lost forever in middle-suburban Brisbane, so I hitchhiked home with a blonde lady in a red sports car, but in general, I agree with you.

Watson said :

fabforty said :

milkman said :

aceofspades said :

If a bus driver threw my crying 6yo off a bus I would hunt him down a belt the absolute crap out of him.

As would I.

If you let your six year old travel on the bus alone, I think it is both of you who need a belting.

Cue for the helicopter parents…

No he’s right – 6 yr olds don’t need to ride the bus, when your little and in your first years of school,i think kids should be driven – i don’t care if anyone else wants to put their kindy or 1st grader on the bus, but i personally wouldn’t.

James_Ryan said :

Two words:

Daniel Morcombe.

Still think kicking kids off school buses is a good idea?

That gave me shivers. It’s not okay to abuse the driver but it’s also not okay to kick the kids off the bus. A previous comment stated that the driver took them back to the school. I think that may be the best move. The kids have to explain why it happened, the driver has not ‘abandoned’ them, the kids are safe and the driver is safe. It will certainly make the little toe rags think twice about their behaviour.

fabforty said :

milkman said :

aceofspades said :

If a bus driver threw my crying 6yo off a bus I would hunt him down a belt the absolute crap out of him.

As would I.

If you let your six year old travel on the bus alone, I think it is both of you who need a belting.

Cue for the helicopter parents…

milkman said :

aceofspades said :

If a bus driver threw my crying 6yo off a bus I would hunt him down a belt the absolute crap out of him.

As would I.

If you let your six year old travel on the bus alone, I think it is both of you who need a belting.

I am used to traveling on the same bus as Telopea kids, and I can assure you that they more than likely deserved it.

aceofspades said :

If a bus driver threw my crying 6yo off a bus I would hunt him down a belt the absolute crap out of him.

As would I.

TheDancingDjinn said :

damien haas said :

Having caught the bus from Gungahlin to Belconnen on one of the magical mystery routes as the bus tours through Nicholls and Evatt, i have seen children of primary school age board the bus, pay, behave and exit the bus – shock horror – on their own!

The fact that society infantilises children, when they should encourage independence and resilience is sad. I could count on one hand the number of times i was driven to school.

Society makes kids eternal infants? LOL – tell that the freaks selling g strings to girls that are 7-10 yrs old and push up bras too

ok – whatever. We actually should be making our kids stay kids longer.

That’s actually the sexualization of children which is a totally different problem.

damien haas said :

I tag off with my myway card at a stop *before* i arrive at my stop. You just have to make sure you sit or stand near the scanner at the middle of the bus. Bus stops, whip your card out and tag off. That way i can collect all my bags of shopping, corral my twelve children and unfold my pram – without having to pause on the way out the door to hear a satisfying beep.

I do have sleepless nights worrying about the number crunchers in TAMS puzzling over their stats though.

So many factual errors in that. Ride a bus sometime to achieve a minimal level of verisimilitude.

If a bus driver threw my crying 6yo off a bus I would hunt him down a belt the absolute crap out of him.

Darkfalz said :

Just one other thing, maybe not the thread for it but I must say I hate the tagging off of the new MyWay system. Bus drivers seem to have a fairly regular habit of just coasting past my stop if I don’t actually get up and start towards the front of the bus when it gets close. Trying to move while the bus in motion is hard enough, but having things in your hands and your bloody MyWay card in the other because you have to scan it to get off makes it way harder. As a result I’ve stubbed my toes a couple of times and slipped over quite badly on one occasion. I wish I could trust the drivers to stop when I’ve pressed the button without having to risk my footing with hands full on a moving bus.

I watched this kind of thing happen many years ago- way before thismyway stuff. It was an old man, the bus driver didn’t slow for him to walk the isle to get to the door – he fell, the blood was everywhere coming from his hands and knees and shoulder and partly on his head where he had smashed himslef against that metal basket that holds the bags. The bus driver didn’t even get out of his seat to help him. The old man just got out and hobbled hime, i would have to i would have been very angy and very embaressed.

damien haas said :

Having caught the bus from Gungahlin to Belconnen on one of the magical mystery routes as the bus tours through Nicholls and Evatt, i have seen children of primary school age board the bus, pay, behave and exit the bus – shock horror – on their own!

The fact that society infantilises children, when they should encourage independence and resilience is sad. I could count on one hand the number of times i was driven to school.

Society makes kids eternal infants? LOL – tell that the freaks selling g strings to girls that are 7-10 yrs old and push up bras too ok – whatever. We actually should be making our kids stay kids longer.

I tag off with my myway card at a stop *before* i arrive at my stop. You just have to make sure you sit or stand near the scanner at the middle of the bus. Bus stops, whip your card out and tag off. That way i can collect all my bags of shopping, corral my twelve children and unfold my pram – without having to pause on the way out the door to hear a satisfying beep.

I do have sleepless nights worrying about the number crunchers in TAMS puzzling over their stats though.

Just one other thing, maybe not the thread for it but I must say I hate the tagging off of the new MyWay system. Bus drivers seem to have a fairly regular habit of just coasting past my stop if I don’t actually get up and start towards the front of the bus when it gets close. Trying to move while the bus in motion is hard enough, but having things in your hands and your bloody MyWay card in the other because you have to scan it to get off makes it way harder. As a result I’ve stubbed my toes a couple of times and slipped over quite badly on one occasion. I wish I could trust the drivers to stop when I’ve pressed the button without having to risk my footing with hands full on a moving bus.

astrojax said :

i was on a bus earlier this week when the driver, at a bus stop, got out of his seat andf walked to the rear of the bus and demanded a passenger up the back cease consuming a beverage

I frequently board the bus with my lidded reusable plastic coffee cup, and sip it quietly on the way to work. Driver has never complained. But I am always friendly and sit near to the front as possible.

Groups of kids on the bus, especially young males can be a major pain in the arse. Lone bogans don’t generally cause too many problems (apart from the smell), it’s groups. Once some drunk sack of shit threw up near the back of the bus, and the dickhead males kept saying to oncoming passengers “There’s a place for you to sit”. Absolute punks. I remember the driver stopped the bus at one point, don’t remember exactly what he did. He may have ordered two of the punks to give up their seats for new passengers, and to go sit near the vomit.

IhateWHINGERS said :

I am an Action Driver, Every day without fail my wife hears about the downright unpleasentness of either the poor driving I wittness or rude obnixious or disturbing behaviour I see. I have been threatened to be stabbed because I would not “lend” a junkie a smoke, I get abused for abiding by the road laws in particular giving way to buses pulling out from stops, or lane sharing when turning. and i get yelled at because I am responsible for the bus before me not running (i dont even know what time that would be)
Kids have it far to easy and some need a kick up the backside to pull them into line, I do not condone leaving littleuns on the side of the road, and would not do that myself but people understand there is only so much you can see in the mirrors. If i see who did it they suffer but remember when were are looking in the mirror we are not looking at the road. if they dont tell me whodunit then they all pay, leasons learned as a group work too!
Drivers have no protection from attack verbally or physically and it is downright scary sometimes doing what we do. Parents control your kids if not they walk, simple. at the end of the day every person has a responsibility to act in accordance with the law, being under 16 doesn’t and shouldn’t give you cate’ blanch to act like a tool.
I for one in this type of instance will wait untill the person owns up and appologises to the other passangers, I have been know to sit at a bus stop for 15mins.
Bus travel is a privelige, consider that I pay for a coffee at mcdonalds then I tip half of it on the lad behind the counter, I loose my privelige to be there. why is agression or bad behavior toward a driver or other passanger on a bus considered to be different.

Good on you.

damien haas said :

Having caught the bus from Gungahlin to Belconnen on one of the magical mystery routes as the bus tours through Nicholls and Evatt, i have seen children of primary school age board the bus, pay, behave and exit the bus – shock horror – on their own!

The fact that society infantilises children, when they should encourage independence and resilience is sad. I could count on one hand the number of times i was driven to school.

Hear, hear.

Though I still don’t agree with kicking kindy kids off the bus. Not because I think they are unsafe on their own on the streets, but because they hadn’t been prepared at all for that kind of self-reliance. Still, bit hard to get an idea of what actually happened on that bus.

Having caught the bus from Gungahlin to Belconnen on one of the magical mystery routes as the bus tours through Nicholls and Evatt, i have seen children of primary school age board the bus, pay, behave and exit the bus – shock horror – on their own!

The fact that society infantilises children, when they should encourage independence and resilience is sad. I could count on one hand the number of times i was driven to school.

Although I am reluctant to weigh in on this debate without knowing the circumstances, it would appear that the children were offered the opportunity to re-board the bus, therefore it was their own choice to be left on the side of the road. I very much doubt many 6 year olds would have refused, unless encouraged by older peers. I would guess those who refused were planning to cry foul to their parents, knowing they’d fly to the defence of their little princes and princesses.

That this tactic clearly worked, leaves me gobsmacked. If it were one of mine, they’d have been ‘encouraged’ to write an apology to the driver, in addition to being made to walk (at least a fair distance) for a week to highlight their good fortune to be able to catch a bus at all.

I think it’s completely understandable, kids on buses can be awful. Having had experience with Telopea kids I can completely understand the driver’s behaviour. There’s only so much you can put up with.

Not sure on duty of care. It’s dangerous to leave minors in the middle of nowhere – not all will have phones etc. But do drivers even have a duty of care (beyond the normal one of driver and passenger) when the passenger is a child? I doubt it.

Stevian said :

James_Ryan said :

Two words:

Daniel Morcombe.

Still think kicking kids off school buses is a good idea?

Absolutely. Can you guarantee that the little scrotes will get that kind of treatment?

Im sorry, usually i find you funny – but wishing what happened to Daniel Morcombe on kids because they are naughty is not a good thing to say or even think or type. Dude not cool, what Daniel Morcombe would have suffered i wish on no one.

And bring the Daniel Morcombe case in here is way of track – for one this is Canberra, and while i agree there would be people here who want to hurt kids – we live in a rather small place – i have met alot of you in real life funnily enough, it’s alot different here than it is in QLD.
Secondly as someone has already informed you – Daniel was not kicked off a bus, but rather waiting for one and he was alone.

Merle said :

Bus travel: a right or a privilege? vs. Not having your primary school child left on the side of the road: a right or a privilege?

A privilege, if you choose to raise scrotes, take some responsibility for once in your life

The Bus driver was simply following Regulation 36 of the new Work Health Safety Regulations 2011. When a workplace hazard is identified the hierarchy of control is applied to either eliminate the hazard or minimize the risk.

Step 1 Eliminate the hazard – got the distracting naughty children of the bus who were compromising the safety of the others on the bus and the road users.

Bus travel: a right or a privilege? vs. Not having your primary school child left on the side of the road: a right or a privilege?

Extract of “Customer Service Charter” from the ACTION Website:

ACTION asks all customers to consider the comfort of fellow passengers and in particular you are requested to:

keep your feet off the seats
not allow your baggage to obstruct aisles or exit doors
keep buses clean by not littering
refrain from eating or drinking on the bus (unless required for medical reasons)
not smoke on the bus
vacate your seat for the elderly, disabled or pregnant and allow them to travel in the priority areas set aside for them.

All customers are asked to assist ACTION by:

utilising the MyWay ticketing system where possible and having your MyWay Card ready upon boarding the bus
using your MyWay card correctly by tagging on and off each bus
when travelling on a concession fare, carrying a current concession card and presenting it when boarding the bus
refraining from speaking to and distracting the driver while the bus is in motion
treating fellow passengers and ACTION staff in a polite and courteous manner
pressing the stop button in a timely manner, before reaching the stop you wish to depart at.

How often do school kids comply with any of the above (other than the no smoking one)?

And bus drivers do have to right to “evict” passengers from the bus – if a driver believes on reasonable grounds that a person is committing, or has just committed, an offence against part 3.3 or part 3.2 of the Road Transport (Public Passenger Services) Regulation 2002, the driver can direct the person to get off the bus. (Failure to comply with the direction is a further offence.) But, as Bussie said, ACTION policy is not to do so on school services.

James_Ryan said :

Two words:

Daniel Morcombe.

Still think kicking kids off school buses is a good idea?

Absolutely. Can you guarantee that the little scrotes will get that kind of treatment?

I can’t remember exactly how long it took me but I decided I’d rather do the long walk to and from school than ever get on a school bus again. More recently I’ve known a couple of parents who made certain choices just to avoid their kids having to go through the Woden interchange, what is it about the Woden interchange? I agree with fabforty. I didn’t know ACTION does a door to door service, what happens to the kids when they get off their stop, they still have to walk some distance don’t they? Doesn’t Telopea have after school care for the little kids? Probably returning to the school would’ve been better but hindsight is great, perhaps the driver just thought after a good scare the kids will all get back on and behave properly for the rest of the journey. I suppose in this day and age Duffbowl’s driver who locked the kids in the bus would be charged with kidnapping. I really think consideration for the little moppets has gone too far lately and it’s not really doing them or society any good learning they can do anything they feel like and will always be excused.

I can’t include quotes in my respose today for some reason.

Not sure about James Ryan’s comments about Daniel Morcombe. Daniel was not kicked off a bus. His bus didn’t pick him up because it was overcrowded and another was due in 10 minutes. And he was alone – not with a busload of other children. It was tragic, but lets get the facts straight.

While I agree the best reponse would have been for the driver to just return the kids to school, the driver in the Telopea incident came back to collect the children a few minutes later. They chose not to get back on the bus.

Anyway, why are kindergarten kids travelling alone ? Even on a school bus I think that is pretty bad.

Erg0 said :

In my school days, there was one bus driver who was notorious for his lack of patience with unruly students. He didn’t just kick kids off for bad behaviour, he drove the bus back to the school and [i]then[/i] kicked everyone off and drove back to the depot for a cuppa (I assume). The nearest proper bus stop was a 15 minute walk away, and everyone got home an hour or more late as a result.

Of course, after a couple such incidents the kids became self-policing, shushing those who spoke too loudly, and savagely beating those who threw balled-up paper across the aisle. You’ll never see a better-behaved group of 50-odd teens in your life.

There’s probably a lesson in that somewhere.

Very nicely done.

I may have missed a reference to it in the comments, but what ever happened to “conductors” or whatever their latter day equivalents are?
Occasionally, you do see an additional ACTION staffer on a bus or milling around the interchange just outside a bus before it leaves, normally wearing a hi-viz vest. I think I even saw one vest with the title “Conductor” on it.
If the school buses are bad, is there a need for a supervisor given the driver’s first task is driving rather than crown control?

Two words:

Daniel Morcombe.

Still think kicking kids off school buses is a good idea?

ACTION policy is that no school kids can be kicked off a bus or refused entry to a bus. Kids can be banned from the bus but that decision is made by people higher up the hierarchy than the driver.

In my experience when doing a different shift every week the kids sometimes treat you like relief teachers get treated. I’ve had a firecracker set off on the bus (St Francis Xavier), the fire extinguisher emptied (Marist), a full on fist fight (Melba High) as well the usual ringing the bell and not getting off. Conversely when I’ve owned a shift (ie done it for a long time) I’ve always got on pretty well with the school kids and had no serious disciplinary problems.

I am an Action Driver, Every day without fail my wife hears about the downright unpleasentness of either the poor driving I wittness or rude obnixious or disturbing behaviour I see. I have been threatened to be stabbed because I would not “lend” a junkie a smoke, I get abused for abiding by the road laws in particular giving way to buses pulling out from stops, or lane sharing when turning. and i get yelled at because I am responsible for the bus before me not running (i dont even know what time that would be)
Kids have it far to easy and some need a kick up the backside to pull them into line, I do not condone leaving littleuns on the side of the road, and would not do that myself but people understand there is only so much you can see in the mirrors. If i see who did it they suffer but remember when were are looking in the mirror we are not looking at the road. if they dont tell me whodunit then they all pay, leasons learned as a group work too!
Drivers have no protection from attack verbally or physically and it is downright scary sometimes doing what we do. Parents control your kids if not they walk, simple. at the end of the day every person has a responsibility to act in accordance with the law, being under 16 doesn’t and shouldn’t give you cate’ blanch to act like a tool.
I for one in this type of instance will wait untill the person owns up and appologises to the other passangers, I have been know to sit at a bus stop for 15mins.
Bus travel is a privelige, consider that I pay for a coffee at mcdonalds then I tip half of it on the lad behind the counter, I loose my privelige to be there. why is agression or bad behavior toward a driver or other passanger on a bus considered to be different.

E_M said :

I was on the said bus. The ABC report has false information. The driver had kicked everyone out of the bus. This includes children from kindergarten to year 2. These children were crying the older children comforted them and offered to walk them home.. I do admit that the verbal abuse the driver recieved was too much. In the end, only 5-10 children got back on the bus. I do not understand why everyone, especially the primary children, had to suffer due to the behaviour of a select few. In my opinion the bus driver overreacted considering the situation. Perhaps the worst that came out if this is the negative image of the school and the obvious trauma some of the students faced.

Oh wow, that makes it a whole different story. I would’ve supported the driver’s actions if he would’ve kicked the trouble makers only off, but that is quite appalling.

Mind you, I bet those kindy kids will never misbehave on a bus when they’re older. But if that was my 6yo being made to think they would be left by the side of the road when they had not done anything wrong, I’d be fuming.

At my high school, people used to call the school complaining about poor behaviour on busses. The principle used to make a big deal of it and a lot of the time he would find the culprits.

We were generally well behaved, but the trips were long. Lots of bored kids cooped up in a bus for an hour twice a day was a sure path to mucking up.

I was on the said bus. The ABC report has false information. The driver had kicked everyone out of the bus. This includes children from kindergarten to year 2. These children were crying the older children comforted them and offered to walk them home.. I do admit that the verbal abuse the driver recieved was too much. In the end, only 5-10 children got back on the bus. I do not understand why everyone, especially the primary children, had to suffer due to the behaviour of a select few. In my opinion the bus driver overreacted considering the situation. Perhaps the worst that came out if this is the negative image of the school and the obvious trauma some of the students faced.

My opinion is bus drivers and their passengers have the right to feel safe. Drivers need to have some recourse to deal with aggressive passengers. In some cases removing offender/s from the bus will be appropriate, in other circumstances it won’t be. Consideration would have to be given to the safety of anyone put off the bus. Surely drivers have radio links with the depot and could seek guidance from a supervisory position. If necessary the little mini bus could come out, meet the bus and hold a kangaroo court, or the driver could hold a vote amongst the passengers and go with the majority.
Additionally the Action website would need to have clear expectations about passenger behaviour and the penalty for not meeting this expectation. I could not find anything on their website relating to this, but it could be there, however if I missed it despite searching for it, then it needs to be more obvious.

Perhaps Action should conduct some public consultation to determine what Joe Average believes is appropriate for future miscreants.

astrojax said :

there’s no ‘d’ in privilege…

without being privvy to the details

And only one ‘v’ in privy.

Having been a ratbag high school student on a bus, whose “pranks” sometimes extended beyond those mentioned above, I was kicked off of more than one school bus. The difference being I generally copped to my behaviour and any punishment that followed. That included one time having to explain to a group of parents why our rural bus was late when the driver decided to stop for 30 minutes, got off the bus with the keys and locked us in. The older kids on the bus did not look upon me with any kindness following that incident.

Suck it up, own up to it, take your punishment (unless it’s one of Brother Michael’s “special beatings”) and get on with it.

we are born with LEGS! if you can’t act civil you have the right to get off your lazy ass and use them!
respect the other people and their RIGHT to act like a civil human and grow up!!
take a WALK!

Well if ya can’t kick em out of a public school why should you be able to kick em off a public bus? I mean don’t bus drivers have a duty of care too?

Personally, it’d be nice if we did kick em out of schools and buses if they’re dangerous or overly disruptive, then perhaps the kids and their parents might appreciate what they got.

191 voters; 3 votes for Is a terrible thing. I’d live to hear from them and why they think a bus driver should have to put up with sh*t from school children.

Awwww poor little darlings. In the mid 1980’s our ACTION bus driver who was contracted to the afternoon run for Daramalan kicked us all off because we were being right little sh*ts. We deserved what we got.

Considering the duties of being an ACTION bus driver include ensuring safe and comfortable carriage of members of the public, bus drivers have every right to boot unruly school children.

Chop71 said :

TheDancingDjinn said :

I don’t like seeing their buttcheeks and ball sacks.

ssshhhh, it’s ok. We know you liked it. 🙂

I admitt i did laugh – i wasn’t shocked and offended, but embaressed for them and saddend for their tiny hairless sacks pressed against the glass 😛 – seriously i think if one of them had slipped and fallen while doing that to me, i think i would have had an accident just from laughing so hard. As it was i had to regain myself when i laughed at them.

MERC600 said :

I do remember an article years ago, where a driver put up with as much as he could, but a shoe flying past his ear caused him to do a 180 and take the little snotts back to the school.

Memory is gettin a bit shot, but am certain it was Darra.

TheDancingDjinn said :

I don’t like seeing their buttcheeks and ball sacks.

ssshhhh, it’s ok. We know you liked it. 🙂

astrojax said :

there’s no ‘d’ in privilege…

….without being privvy…
….passenger wasn’t to pleased….

Seeing as we are playing the grammar game 🙂

If my child would ever behave obnoxiously on a bus, I’d be thrilled if she would be kicked off. Natural consequences, there should be more of it.

I wish the drivers were this hot on behaviour all the time. The commuter buses are usually ok as everyone on there works and knows how to use a bus and treat other people. The buses in the day times – especially form the city out to Woden can be populated with ferals who drink and swear and generally make the trip feel longer than it actually is. I wish school kids would move their bags off of the seats, not put their feet on the seats, and remember when they file down the aisle of the bus that they have bags the size of a small car on their backs that could take someone’s head off.

Having said that about pasengers, I also wish the drivers would’t drive erratically, speed and listen to their sh*t radio stations so loud.

Vanessa said :

I remember way back in the 80s, after repeated appalling behaviour en masse, all students at Daramalan College were prohibited from using Action buses around school time. As a frequent traveller on these buses at the time (with small children) I along with many others were thrilled at the decision by ACTION. Eventually the ban was lifted, but it took quite a while.

That was St Edmund’s – or did it happen to Daramalan as well?

Recall being on a country NSW train, out of Sydney to somewhere west of Dubbo, years ago. End of school term. Mobs of marauding boarders from some of Sydney’s finest making like idiots. Dumped at out of the way rural siding about 2 am on a freezing night. But there was discipline in those days, when you could take a trip around the world, buy a new suit and still have change from a shilling.

I do remember an article years ago, where a driver put up with as much as he could, but a shoe flying past his ear caused him to do a 180 and take the little snotts back to the school.

Holden Caulfield said :

sneakers said :

And yes, I wasn’t very popular the next day (although the principal kinda gave me a knowing grin as he dressed me down).

Marist?

“It’s your turn in the barrel.”

Marist? Bwahahahaha

Holden Caufield, you are a funny guy.

In my school days, there was one bus driver who was notorious for his lack of patience with unruly students. He didn’t just kick kids off for bad behaviour, he drove the bus back to the school and [i]then[/i] kicked everyone off and drove back to the depot for a cuppa (I assume). The nearest proper bus stop was a 15 minute walk away, and everyone got home an hour or more late as a result.

Of course, after a couple such incidents the kids became self-policing, shushing those who spoke too loudly, and savagely beating those who threw balled-up paper across the aisle. You’ll never see a better-behaved group of 50-odd teens in your life.

There’s probably a lesson in that somewhere.

I just had 5 young men moon me from the back seat of a action bus not even 10 minutes ago – my children were confused. If you want to use the bus, then try and control yourself so that the driver can just drive, and not have to keep checking on what your doing. Failing that – People control your teenagers – i don’t like seeing their buttcheeks and ball sacks.

sneakers said :

And yes, I wasn’t very popular the next day (although the principal kinda gave me a knowing grin as he dressed me down).

Marist?

Priviledge.

Is that in the Brindabellas?

About 20 years ago when I was in high school the Action driver got the poops with the kid repeatedly pushing the bell (this was an old bus where you could do that). Instead of kicking us off he just chucked a u turn and took us back to school. Headmaster was not impressed. Button pusher was suspended.

there’s no ‘d’ in privilege…

without being privvy to the details it is impossible to make a call on this matter. that said, manners seems to have gone the way of dials on telephones and wind-up windows on cars. i was on a bus earlier this week when the driver, at a bus stop, got out of his seat andf walked to the rear of the bus and demanded a passenger up the back cease consuming a beverage, made him leave the bus and dispose of the open can. passenger wasn’t to pleased, from his mutterings as he passed me each way back to his seat sans offending can, but the signage on buses is clear.

perhaps more drivers should send more of a strong signal and behaviour would improve, to the benefit of the commuting public?

but then, kids need to get home and be kept from dangerous environments, so it’s a tough call. still a gang of fifteen shouldn’t be harassed by lonely loonies…

Impossible to say without knowing what the behaviour of the students was like.

Looking back, I am amazed that this never hapenned on a school bus I was on.

I once had a whole busload of students evicted from a bus simply because I gave the driver the finger as I got off. Technically, they have a right to do so (ie. evict), but it’s kinda complicated. Duty of care comes into play – passengers should be able to expect that the service they pay for provides them with the service they pay for and be able to get to their destination safely. If there’s no safety risk to either the driver or passengers, drivers should not have the right to evict.

And yes, I wasn’t very popular the next day (although the principal kinda gave me a knowing grin as he dressed me down).

I remember way back in the 80s, after repeated appalling behaviour en masse, all students at Daramalan College were prohibited from using Action buses around school time. As a frequent traveller on these buses at the time (with small children) I along with many others were thrilled at the decision by ACTION. Eventually the ban was lifted, but it took quite a while.