TRANSPORTATION SECTION
The Association of School Transportation Services of British Columbia
“Your Child’s Safety Is Our Business”
School bus drivers – it’s not just a job!! By Dennis V. Powell Throughout B.C., approximately 1,700 buses transport about 210,000 students to and from school each and every school day. Multiply that number by the number of school days, and it adds up to roughly 38 million students who get to and from school on a school bus. And, these numbers do not include the hundreds of field trips that students take throughout the year. All of this transportation is being done with an exceptional safety record that this industry works hard to maintain and is extremely proud of. Just think of the challenge… the risk… the responsibility that school bus drivers across B.C. accept every working day. In my
district, alone, each of my drivers transports between 100 to 300 students to/from school. My 15 buses stop to either pick up or drop off students over 700 times each and every school day. What a challenge; what risks; what responsibility that is! A classroom teacher may have a class of 30 students facing them, and has help just next door if needed. A school bus driver might have as many as 84 elementary, 65 middle or 56 secondary students on board his/her school bus. Their back is to the students, with only a six-inch by 36-inch mirror to see what the students are doing; they are operating a 30,000-pound bus in today’s traffic – and all of this by themselves. It is definitely not a job for everybody! I have had lots of people apply to be a bus driver; and many have said how much they love kids. When somebody who hasn’t driven a school bus applies with me, we tell them to ride with our driver coach for the day and after the day on the bus, to then let me know if this is a career they want to enter. I had a six-foot, four-inch 56-year-old retired RCMP officer who after a day riding with our coach, called me up and told me that life was too short and he would pass. He continued driving a school bus on field trips for a private school, taking children where they wanted to go; but when it came to driving children to/from school, he soon learned that a day-to-day school bus operator’s job was not for everyone.
Sammy Tong Western Region Sales Manager Mississauga Office Tel: 866-805-7089 Sparks, NV 800-987-9042
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Ops Talk • Spring 2012
Belimo Americas 219-6279 Eagles Drive Vancouver, BC V6T 2K7 Tel: 604-221-6105 Cell: 778-772-6273 sammy.tong@ca.belimo.com www.belimo.ca
