I can't believe what I saw when driving to work today

[DS1]

A school bus stopped, picked up a young boy ( probably about ten years old ), closed the door, went up the road past ONE HOUSE, and turned right into the school parking lot.

:banghead:

:wtf:

:banghead:

[matcom]

1. ugh. when i worked just west of here...

i'd follow the bus on 140. it would stop at EVERY HOUSE! :grr:

when I was a kid, we used to gather at BUS STOPS!

now the kids aren't allowed i guess. stupid rugrats can't even congregate on someone's porch. every.fucking.house.

:argh:

[underpants]

2. Was it a fat kid?

Is that the reason the little porker is so pudgy?

[auntAgonist]

27. I

can't believe you said that.

:(

[Midlodemocrat]

3. Two bad they outlawed 'child catchers'

like in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

You'd be PERFECT for the job.

[Deep13]

4. Gone a little overboard with child safety and comfort.

I knew that when I saw a minivan with a/c ducts and a TV set for the backseat.

[Midlodemocrat]

6. Hey! That's my minivan.

:hide:



Seriously.

[Bassic]

33. Yeah, I am NOT getting one of those, even though we do commute a lot

between our house and my in-laws house in a city about 45 minutes away.

My kid's just going to have to learn to be patient, just like I had to back then.

[Deep13]

5. oops, double post.

[XNASA]

7. Well, you can't be too careful nowadays. What with all the terrists....

....and brown and black people given so much free reign by them damn Lieberals and Morans.

:eyes:

[Bunny]

8. I can see it for the little kids, but by the time someone is ten years

old, they should be able to walk a half-block to school. Or go to a nearby bus stop.

I'm amused by this, because when I rode the cheese wagon, we went up the road to a bus stop, and there were kids from six or eight families gathered there. No way would the driver have stopped at every house.

[kick-ass-bob]

15. but that is the same school as the 5 year old.

They've probably been stopping there for 5 years.

[ucmike]

9. i had the same reaction the other day

i was behind a bus that made three stops 100' apart to pick up 3 individual kids. all three were sitting in mom's car when the bus pulled up.

what got me is that our town is about 5 square miles, so these moms got up, got dressed, started the car, situated the kids, and drove to the bus stop. the school couldn't have been more than 2 miles away but they sat at the end of the street waiting. the kids could've been to school already, not to mention that they could've carpooled and saved the town the cost of the bus route.

to its credit our schoolboard has tried to save money on buses by instituting "walking wednesday". there is no bus service within town limits on wednesdays, so parents, teachers, and police are escorting large groups of kids as they walk to school. (i think they have carpools organized for bad weather days) i think its a good idea and it looks kind of fun.

[DS1]

10. You often see a line of H2s, Lincoln Navigators, Suburbans, and

so on, all glistening clean, engines running, waiting for the school bus to stop and drop their kids off.

I used to wonder why the college-aged kids around me during school were largely completely useless.

[China_cat]

11. Here you have to live .9 mile or more

away from the school to be eligible for bus service. Exception being children with handicaps.

[kick-ass-bob]

12. Elementary school? I could see it.

We live about 1/2 mile away from my son's elem. school, but on the other side of a 5 lane (45 mph) road.

If it were a 5 yr old, no one would say anything, and well, I bet he was once 5. Plus, he wouldn't be the only one on the route, and it's on the way, so it picks him up on the way there.

:shrug:

I don't get the hate.

[dolo amber]

13. What's just as annoying is when they stop

every 15 feet at the end of someone's driveway to pick someone up. Why, back in my day, all the neighborhood kids schlepped to ONE bus stop at the front of the subdivision. These damn kids today are too soft. :eyes:

/geezer

[kick-ass-bob]

14. I guess I don't have that issue.

Plus, when I was in high school, we had the driver let us off near our houses - so he stopped 3 times instead of one on a road.

[DS1]

17. Yeah, that's how it was for me

Kids came from blocks away, and somehow we all managed to live through it all :eyes:

Another thing I never see anymore is kids riding their bikes to school, I used to ride about 3 or 4 miles - and I'm NOT complaining about it being difficult.

[Midlodemocrat]

18. My daughter rides her bike to school.

it is about 1/2 mile away and we have bike trails, so she isn't on the road. She loves it.

[Left Is Write]

16. Does anyone have any way of knowing if there is a special reason for

picking up the boy?

There are a lot of assumptions in this thread.

[DS1]

19. Considering the way he LEAPT into the bus, he looked pretty healthy

to me. Besides, why can't a parent walk him around the block? It's not a major road he lives on, but it is a busy one - but after I picked my jaw up out of my lap I did to check to see that there was a sidewalk. There was a great sidewalk, and it was plowed, and he only had to get past one house before he was on school property.

F'in ridiculous

[Left Is Write]

21. I don't know why a parent can't walk him.

I know nothing of the situation but what you described - and neither do you.

[DS1]

23. well la de fucking da

[Left Is Write]

24. Okay.

If that's the way you want to be.

[kick-ass-bob]

20. I don't see the big deal even if there is no special reason.

So a bus stops on a residential road a couple of times for about 1 minute in the morning and the afternoon.

People get their panties in a wad over the strangest things.

[DS1]

22. And then drives 30 feet to school

My point isn't so much the stop, it's that kids today are so pampered I'm just waiting for the kiddie-leashes to start showing up in malls. And Kiddie-Runs in the backyards. And elevators in houses so they don't fall down the stairs.

[Midlodemocrat]

25. Kids are pampered today, you're right.

and a lot of the 'pampering' comes from improved safety issues, as well as parents earning more money.

I am guilty of pampering my kids. We do WAY more with/for them than my parents did, and my parents were wonderful. Still, they are turning out okay, and I choose to spend my money on them, rather than myself.

[Misunderestimator]

28. Pampered? How about protected?

[DS1]

29. From what?

Life?

[Misunderestimator]

30. From predators?

Sure, I rode all over the neighborhood by myself on my bike when I was seven years old, but I wouldn't allow a child under my care to be that unsupervised today. Are you kidding? You don't think that children need a bit more protection than we did growing up?

[matcom]

35. sorry. i'm with Martin on this one

you live NEXT TO SCHOOL. walk!

and ride your bike
and play in the woods
unsupervised

the world is NO MORE dangerous today then it was when we were little. most of us survived just fine.

[cmd]

37. What is it with this fear thing?

I think people actually like feeling afraid all the time. I'm not one to do something stupid when there are actually reasons to be afraid, but to be in a constant state of fear is not living. I'm with you and Martin: walk, ride your bike, play and learn, dammit.

[bicentennial_baby]

39. Read 'The Culture of Fear'

Excellent read, all about how so much of the fear that drives people in our society to do certain things is ridiculously influenced by media hype, as opposed to realistic facts. Big surprise, 'eh? ;)

[Misunderestimator]

40. we don't know the reasons for this particular situation at all

The kid could have all his toes amputated and can't walk (saw something about frostbitten toes on Discovery channel this weekend :scared:)... who knows?

As for the unsupervised part... again... it really depends on the environment. If I lived on 110th and Broadway in Manhattan... no way would I let a kid play unsupervised.

(edited to remove "I totally agree"... I hadn't read your last sentence. The world IS more dangerous.)

[DS1]

41. I said he came flying out of his house and leapt into the bus

There's no amputation here, just a society built around sloth and fear.

[Misunderestimator]

42. HAHAHAH ROFL

:rofl:

Sloth and fear!! :rofl:

[fishnfla]

26. Like assuming that is the kids school

I rode on a bus that went to 2 different schools. Maybe they are trying to save gas

[Strong Atheist]

31. In my day, we WALKED

TO SCHOOL FIVE MILES, IN SNOWSTORMS, UPHILL, BOTH WAYS.... wimps ...

[greatauntoftriplets]

32. Back in the olden days when I was a kid....

I WALKED to grade school. And I took public transportation to high school. Amazingly, I lived through the process.

On edit: And there were predators around in those days. I once encountered one but knew enough to get away from the jerk fast. At the time, I was maybe 10.

[jmm]

34. If he was really taking the bus for safety reasons

then a parent should've been waiting for the bus with him. If I am correct in my assumption that there was no parent at the bus stop with him then he would've been just as safe walking to school as he would've been waiting. Also he would've gotten there sooner because he didn't have to wait for the bus to arrive.

If I am wrong and there was a parent there then maybe they were concerned about their child walking past one house to get to school but they could've saved time and given their child a little lesson in physical fitness by walking with them instead of waiting.

[BikeWriter]

36. Another kid lives across the street...

from the school. The parents want to be certain he's supervized crossing the street, so he catches the bus!

[Deja Q]

38. I often walked 2 miles (each way) to/from school...

because I was bullied so.

Elementary school.

A few times I did the same with middle school; though it was 4 miles. Same reason.

And this little pathetic wussbag can't even walk one bloody street block?! Let's get him a complementary handicapped car sticker now too; something else to abuse and waste...

[ThatsMyBarack]

43. I took the bus....

....when I was in Jr. high, and it was no fun! My stop was always the last stop on the route. On the way to school, the bus would be packed full of kids waiting to trip me, call me names, or say, "EW, you're ugly, you can't sit here!" as I struggled to find a seat. Sometimes, the driver would head back out while I was still stuck in the aisle!

The ride home wasn't much better. Whenever the bus was late, I'd be standing in line waiting with the other kids, and the popular girl would smack me in the back of the head and say, "You're so UGLY!" Then I'd just walk home (took 30 minutes). :cry:

[DainBramaged]

44. BBBAAAWWHHH, guess he couldn't find his way?

Sorry, no matter what the political leanings of the parents, that is simply wrong.