• philomory@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Yeah, I feel like people commenting didn’t read the article, there kids as young as 5 years old just… left by the side of the road.

      If you imagine this being done to high schoolers, it’d be easier to wrap your head around (although even then the fact that he ditched everyone on the entire bus is a bit insane). But just, leaving a 5-year old by the side of the road?

        • magnetosphere@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          Oh, for sure. I’m not even going to pretend to have an informed legal opinion. I’m just talking about my own personal feelings.

        • philomory@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          Absolutely, it’d be a stupid and irresponsible thing to do, but, people do stupid and irresponsible stuff all the time. Sometimes you can imagine yourself making such a mistake, or at least, understand the mental process that led to it.

          In this case, though, it’s a bit beyond that.

      • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        kids as young as 5 years old just… left by the side of the road

        I’m a school bus driver in the US and here you’re not even allowed to unload kids that young at their actual stop unless there’s an adult there waiting to take them. Doing this shit here would get you fired for sure and possibly arrested.

    • TheAndrewBrown@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Imagine you, as an adult, are riding a bus and a handful of crazy people are acting like assholes so the driver makes all of you get off the bus, potential miles from where you live. I don’t think this would be ok even with older people. Plus there’s the fact that we don’t even know how bad the misbehavior was. Unless every single one were causing a significant danger, there’s no reason to kick them off.

  • Silverseren@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    If you can’t handle 5-10 year olds, then maybe don’t have a job driving them to and from school?

  • YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.worldOP
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    11 months ago

    Do gen-x era bus drivers now live in Australia, that is a Gen X move right there! Misbehave and you walk.

    • Dojan@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I could see gen-z do it too. They give no fucks, since the world is ending anyway and none of us are rich enough to buy our way into politics and do something about it.

      • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        “hey lil Timmy is getting his head stomped in by Bobby back here, can you help”

        “Absolutely not, dgaf”

    • Sir_Osis_of_Liver@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      That was a form of detention for us. They’d keep us until the buses had left, then let us go. We had the choice of walking home or phoning our parents. I did a lot of walking in the '70s.

      • Dojan@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        My bus driver left if you didn’t make it on time. I say bus, but they were really just vans (Opel/Vauxhall Vivaro I believe) fitted to carry people, because it was a small school and we were all spread out on the countryside. We didn’t even call it a bus, it was “school taxi.”

        My mother didn’t have a car or driver’s license, and no buses went anywhere near where we lived. There were a few occasions where I did miss the bus, so I had to walk home. Looking at Google Maps it says it’s only about a two hour walk. I recall it happening in the winter though, lots of snow, and me being fairly young (around 9 I think) I didn’t get home until half past nine in the evening haha.

        • notacuban@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          We had a bus driver who’d drive away if he had already closed the doors, regardless of if he could see you running for the bus or if other students would tell him someone was coming.

          Smug little prick used to whistle like a fucking 1950s Disney character while he did it, too.

        • AceBonobo@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Sounds like you’re lucky to be alive. But yea, hour plus walks were definitely a thing when going places. Not even a big deal.

  • Orphie Baby@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    This comments section makes me sick. Kids are fucking kids. They don’t “behave”— they’re just trying to enjoy life, they’re just reacting how they know, and they’re still learning. You don’t dump five-year-olds on the side of the road.

    This also sounds like a great way to go to prison with a lot of parents extremely angry at you.

    • elephantium@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      they’re just trying to enjoy life

      Maybe. A neighborhood bully went after me with a makeshift whip around that age. I lost my boot in the snow trying to run away fast enough. Most people are fine as you say. Some…are just broken.

      You don’t dump five-year-olds on the side of the road

      Strongly agree here. I don’t care what they were doing; they’re still kids in need of adult supervision.

    • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      100% don’t do this. It’s wrong.

      Separate conversation: folks we rely on don’t have the support or tools to do their jobs safely and sanely. Kids are violent and beyond “unruly”.

      I’m not suggesting I have an answer, I’m not suggesting dumping them was appropriate. I’m not suggesting “things were better in the good old days”.

      I am suggesting something has evolved in society, (many suggest norms degraded with COVID isolation, maybe. Discuss.) to make these provider’s jobs harder, and many are so close to snapping we as society should recognize it, and help them.

    • yetAnotherUser@feddit.de
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      11 months ago

      While not at the side of the road, where I’m from bus drivers have the right to throw anyone out at a bus station because there aren’t school buses per se. Although this is reserved for particularly rowdy individuals, I can’t imagine any bus driver emptying the entire bus. Definitely shitty & possibly dangerous thing to do.

      • Orphie Baby@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        You have a fundamental lack of understanding of child development. This is why we were abused as kids.

        For so many goddamned reasons— especially if you don’t know anything about the kids— the word “behave” in this usage should not be allowed in adult usage. All it does is perpetuate harmful and false beliefs about children.

        • Hellsadvocate@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Yeah this wasn’t how the bus driver should’ve behaved. Perhaps decline driving them or drop them off in a safer location. They were 5 years old for crying out loud.

        • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          At the same time, there is clearly a need to show that actions have consequences and that if you break rules you’re punished for it. If the driver pulled into an abandoned parking lot and made them deboard in nice weather and stand there for 15 minutes before resuming, that would be fair. As adults it’s on us to guide children, and that means reinforcing good actions and discouraging bad actions – escalating to punishment if they keep acting out.

          I agree with you that the person you’re responding to is being absurd. Punishment has to be carefully done. You need to create a situation that is undesirable but has absolutely no danger to their health nor wellbeing. Is that difficult? Yes. But that’s why we’re the adults.

          The school should have worked with the driver much earlier to address the situation, before it escalated to this point. Even adults can only take so much, but it’s still on us to not lose control.

        • gamer@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          I think you’re part of the reason kids are getting dumped on the side of the road lol

      • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        A fucking 5 year old? What the fuck is wrong with you?

      • Orphie Baby@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        What the hell was your experience with children? Or are you a psychopath, and you’re just projecting it?

        • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          That person wants to live in North Korea so make of that what you will.

  • BURN@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I can’t imagine being a bus driver. 15 years ago when I was riding the bus regularly we were shits, but we knew where the limit was. Kids now don’t seem to know where to stop.

    • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I’m a school bus driver. I tried to enforce the mask-wearing rules towards the end of COVID and some of the kids literally threatened to kill me with a plastic bag over my head or with guns they said they would get from their dads. Nothing was done despite this all being video recorded. A few months later the same kids threw goldfish (the crackers, not the actual fish) at me and got banned from the bus for a week. Go figure.

      My only real problem was with their choice of snack food. If they’d thrown white chocolate Kit-Kats at me I would have just picked them up and said nothing about it.

      • BURN@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        You illustrate my point perfectly.

        Y’all are saints for putting up with those little shitheads. It really sucks that the schools won’t do anything about threats of violence either, and that’s something I’ve heard from teachers too.

        Covid really fucked this generation up. I was lucky enough to be well into college by the time it hit. With these kids their formative years were entirely online

    • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      My dad is one currently. He actually likes it. Although he has had COVID three times because of it.

      • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        It’s a pretty sweet job honestly. Pay is good and it includes health insurance and a small pension, and you get the middle of the day to yourself. All you have to do is drive a big yellow Tonka truck around and put up with the occasional obnoxious middle-schooler.

        • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          Sadly, yes he is doing it for the insurance. He is retired but not yet 65.

  • BlazeMaster3000@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Why become or stay as a school bus driver if you can’t handle children? I don’t give a shit about the argument about the economy or whatever excuse someone will make for them. Throwing children at the side of the road and placing them in danger is far worse; I hope this bus driver gets jail time and barred from being near children.

  • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    If they’re gonna fuck around, best they learn about the find out part now before they become adults

      • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I can’t imagine the 5 year olds were a problem, I instantly assumed shitty teenagers who need straightened out. Kicking out small children is too much

      • Venia Silente@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        Precisely because they’re 5 it’s important they learn early. Otherwise they’ll become… well, Australians. I hear they are one of the big sex slaves of the US, politics-wise.