'Twas in Another Lifetime...

... couldn't resist a little Dylan this morning after seeing this series of photos of interesting bus shelters from around the world. Shelters range from the school bus bus stop (Athens, Ga.) to swing set bus stops in London and indoor air-conditioned bus stops in Dubai.

Also this morning, Bus No. 6 looks forward to June Bug season.

Just for fun (and to make sure I'm doing my share in thinning the June bug herd so they'll never rise up en masse to take over our world) I decided to see how many June bugs splatter on my windshield in a week's time, and how long I could drive without cleaning any of them off. Not only that, but I wanted to see who would notice my disgusting windshield first -- students, a teacher, or Eduardo our transportation guy.

Today's highlight from the Nation's Press: School Bus Driver's Say They're Not to Blame for Recent Problems

Monday Rundown

• The Kalamazoo Gazette offers more thoughts on the assault of a school bus driver. Apparently, it will take some time before the district can coordinate a policy on staff and training to prevent assaults like these or address them if they happen again. The paper also reacts to the virulent debate about race, education and discipline the incident ignited.
• On a similar note, a West Monroe, La., police tasered a 14-year-old student after the 250-pound 5'9" bus rider became belligerent and assaulted an officer.
  
• School bus driver gives special treatment to one cat.
  
• Spring break is over for Bus No. 6. He's sad to be waking up early again, but glad to be working in a job he loves given the economy:
  

  "At least we have a place to go to in the mornings instead of the unemployment line. At least we're driving something bigger than Bubba's pickup truck, and if he even LOOKS like he's going to pass through our blinking lights and stop sign, we know we could take him out if we had a mind to, but we don't because there are kids on board and we're more professional than that. But we gave it some thought. Yes indeed. My blood runs yellow. How about yours"

• Also from Nation's Press:
  
  • Web Site Users Catch Bus Drivers Behaving Badly, Call for Action
  • Transportation Boss Quits After Driver Allegedly Drove While Intoxicated
  • The Ambien Defense: School Bus Driver Claims Medicine Responsible for Sleep Driving Crash
  • More
    

Friday Highlights

• Time to Enlist the Wisdom of Sherlock Holmes. Bus No. 6 has a tip for getting riders to stop eating on the bus and writing on the backs of seats: follow the greatest detective's advice and use your other riders as spys.
• D.C. gets hit with its first snow day. Short Bus Chronicles says drivers need more of a say in when school gets called off.
  
• Just in in case drivers are on the road anyway, a few tips on driving in winter weather.
• wife. mom. school bus driver. also has a day off with the snow.
  
• School Bus Stories learns to 'watch for curbs.' After blowing out a tire and bringing, the a driver learns the probable cause of his first-ever blow out.
• How do you motivate staff in this heartless economy? On our YouTube channel we share Cal LeMon's advice from our 2007 EXPO. In the clip below, LeMon suggests how we can look at working differently to better motivate employees. Watch the section below or each part of the presentation on our channel.
  

Highlights of the Week

Bus No. 6 provides some lighthearted blogging at the end of a long week. This week, Mr. Bus Driver, the "cranky old codger who’s been driving a school bus since '92" warns that there are three things a driver should never trust: kids, the weatherman and the gauges. On gauges he warns:

When my bus is running on fumes, my fuel gauge reads only half empty. If I were to trust my fuel gauge, I'd end up out of fuel in the cow pasture with a bus load of little ones, surrounded by a herd of cows "taking care of business." And every one of those little ones would be covering their noses and begging to walk home -- even if their homes were just around the corner, which they never are. I ran out of fuel once that way, and I'll never let it happen again. When the odometer reads that I've gone 350 miles, I start thinking about adding fuel.

We'd argue (or say the techs might want to take a look take a look at those gauges) but Mr. Driver says these are lessons learned by "experience, trial and error, getting up at 5 and grabbing the bus by the horns and teaching it who's boss!"

Last week, we heard one driver gripe about the sticky, icky candy that always ends up on her bus around Valentines Day. Turns out, Friday the 13th was no horror. "For those wondering, my Valentine's "Friday the 13th" was quite pleasurable," she wrote us. "The kids were remarkably well behaved and very well mannered."

One driver wasn't so lucky. What started as candy hearts being thrown on a Frederick, Md., school bus wound up with a turn back to school, a punched window, a stolen iPod, an asthma attack, an upset parent and a call to police.

Finally, seat belt bills in Colorado and Wyoming moved forward this week. More on both soon.