yellow school bus on residential street
Sarah Biren
Sarah Biren
January 31, 2022 ·  5 min read

Mother Looks for Her Son after School Bus Doesn’t Arrive — Driver Said He Wasn’t in the Bus

It’s a parent’s worst nightmare. You walk your child to the bus stop, place them on the bus, and wave goodbye. But in the afternoon, the bus never brings the child home. After contacting the bus company, the driver claims that the child was never on the bus. Not in the afternoon and not in the morning. Fortunately, in this case, the child was found but the bus driver and company refused to take any accountability. This is what happened to mom and Reddit user u/No_Study9718. She explained the full story and asked the internet for advice. [1]

School bus driver didn’t bring my 5 year old home and lied.

The mom begins her post by explaining a familiar scenario. One Wednesday morning, she put him on the school bus then she went to pick him up in the afternoon. The official drop-off time was 4:18, though it sometimes comes seven minutes early or seven minutes late. She arrived at 4:08 and waited until 4:59. At first, she assumed the bus was running late or traffic was holding it up. But as time ticked by, she called the Department of Transportation (DOT) to find out where the bus was. The DOT representative called the bus driver, who claimed her son was never on the bus that day.

At this point I’m already freaking out so I called the school and tried to contact his teacher,” she wrote. Meanwhile, DOT called her back and said that her son is at an after-school care program; she probably signed him up for and forgot. When the mother tried to refute this, the representative argued with her. “Then I received a call from his teacher telling me she personally put him on the bus; he is on that bus.”

Finally, he was found.

Now about 15 minutes after telling me my son was never on the bus, DOT called saying my son was found sleeping in the back seat and they were bringing him home”. However, the bus was already at the storage facility. At 6:00, almost two hours later, the bus driver dropped off her son and apologized for “taking your kid for a ride”. 

“But it wasn’t my fault

But that wasn’t all. The bus driver blamed the mom for the incident, saying since she wasn’t there on time, he didn’t stop. Then the DOT sent her a GPS image showing him arriving at the bus stop at 4:05, much earlier than the scheduled 4:18 and the seven-minute-early wiggle room. To make matters worse, the mom spoke with her son; he confirmed that he didn’t fall asleep or sit in the back, so he shouldn’t have been overlooked.

The DOT still kept insisting it’s a simple mistake and not a big deal and I should get over it even though I told them I’m not comfortable putting my son in this man’s safety and I would like to remove [him] from the route,” she wrote. “They became very combative and basically told me I was being ridiculous and I was a liar and blowing it out of proportion.”

In fact, the DOT shifted the blame to the son and his teacher, saying they didn’t scan his school tag when he went on the bus, which they did.

“So I’m pretty peeved off that I was lied to repeatedly by this man about my kid and that now they’re trying to call the school and blame the school and my son for something that I believe is their responsibility.

So she asked Reddit if she was being ridiculous and wrong for refusing to let her son on the school bus until the driver is changed.

I have the full support of his teacher and principal but the Department of Transportation is treating us like we’re being outlandish. I don’t know what to do because I have no other way to get my son to school other than the bus but don’t feel safe putting him on the bus with someone more concerned about lying to save his own butt than finding a missing kid.”

Read: ‘Heartless’ Teacher Mocked Student Day by Day, Boy Had Enough and Secretly Recorded Every Insult

Not His First Misdemeanor

The internet took her side, understanding how scary the incident must’ve been. “Not overreacting,” said the top comment. “Not losing a kid is like the biggest job of a school bus driver.”

In the comments, the mom added some more key details. For instance, DOT said the bus driver got the route through seniority, which is why they won’t remove him. “DOT also told me the school and it’s teachers have no right to comment or suggest I file a complaint.

She also added she’s aware mistakes happen; she’s more upset about the driver lying and trying to shift the blame to anyone but himself. Plus, there was apparently another adult on the bus to monitor the children, but still, it took almost 20 minutes for anyone to realize her son was still there after she called the driver.

Unfortunately, this isn’t this driver’s first mistake. The DOT told the mom that if a parent is not waiting at the stop (as the driver initially claimed) the driver has called the parents to tell them their child is still on the bus. But recently, the same driver broke protocol when he dropped off a five-year-old girl at an empty bus stop. She was scared and began walking down the road but thankfully her sister found her. The children’s safety should be the driver’s biggest priority and it’s terrifying to leave kids in the hands of someone who may not think so.

Keep Reading: Husband Asks Wife To Cook Dinner 30 Minutes After She Finds Out Her Mother Passed Away

Source

  1. “School bus driver didn’t brought my 5 year old home 2 hours late and lied.” Reddit. Reddit user u/No_Study971. January 15, 2022

Attention: While many of these stories are interesting, and we would love to take their word for it, the content in this article was taken from an unverifiable source (i.e., a Reddit forum). As such, we cannot guarantee that these events truly happened in the way that they are described in the original source.