Bullies on the Bus

When a School bus driver looks in their mirror, they see the most important reason to drive safe, the students. Driving a vehicle that is on average 30-40 feet long and 7-8 feet across is a tremendous responsibility; even more so when it is transporting approximately 70 children.

Now, imagine sitting in the driver's seat of a bus. You hear shouting coming from behind you, so you look in your mirror. You see two children, one is hitting and the other being hit. The first thing you think to do is say, "Stop!" but they can't hear you over the noise of the other students. Bringing your eyes back to the road you see a red light, and you nearly drove through it. The potential to make mistakes when your attention is pulled away from the road exists.

Bullying on a school bus is more than dangerous, it can be deadly. The above scenario is from a movie on bullying called "Tears on the Highway." In the movie, the bus actually goes through the red light and is hit by another vehicle causing severe injuries for many students. Things happen in the bus, just like they happen in every neighborhood and in every lunchroom. Some of what happens is actually bullying. Every year, students are bullied and every year the bullying gets worse. At Hoglund Transportation, we try our best to make sure that all of the students are taken care of and feel safe on the bus. Our drivers take an active part in preventing bullying by reporting any and every incident to base. By doing this and other things, we plan to avoid a situation like the one described above.

There are many students on the bus each and every day, so not all incidents are witnessed by the school bus driver. If you or your child are having a problem, you need to let us know so we can try to fix it. If we don't know about it, we can't help.

Thank You,
Haleigh