Is it Still Safe For Your Child to Ride a School Bus?

Riding a school bus to school in the mornings and the afternoons has been a tradition for many years now. It has always been a concern for parents on the first day their put their child on the bus because they worry about whether or not they will be afraid or if their safety should be a concern. Usually after the first couple of weeks it becomes routine and most parents never give it much thought after that.
However, in recent years there are a number of reasons that parents are having to be cautious when they have children that ride a school bus to and from their schools. This is because in recent years especially, there has been an alarming increase in the number of children that fight on the bus even as the bus drivers watch in their rear view mirror. There have been many serious incidents where children have been ganged up on by several other kids at one time.
Another concern that has just recently came to light is the risk of a child being molested on the bus by other children on the bus. Older students have been found guilty of molesting smaller kids as they ride to or from school. This is such a serious concern and fifty years ago such a thing occurring on a school bus would have been unthinkable.
There have also been incidents where small children have been accidentally left on the school bus in the morning after the run has been made. It is the responsibility of a bus driver to walk the entire length of the bus after each route has been finished to make sure there is no one left on the bus. Evidently this is not a practice all bus drivers care to make sure they do because when the bus is taken to a temporary parking place until the afternoon route, they were surprised to find a small child had fallen asleep in the morning and had been left on the bus all alone for the entire day. This can be a very dangerous and scary situation when a five or six year old wakes up all alone and is made to sit for hours in hunger and sometimes cold or very hot temperatures in a closed up and empty bus.
Even though the aid of cameras have been installed in many school buses around the country, these types of incidents are still continuing to rise overall. Parents need to take the time to get to know their child’s school bus driver and find out how responsible they might be. Be sure to ask your child about what is going on their school bus and if there are any suspicious things happening that they tell you about, take it to the school principal or even the school board to make sure your child’s bus ride is as safe as possible.