dilbert:
I agree with saratoga. when i did my psv way back in 1982 they drummed it into us trainees that is was safer[and cheaper] to hit the car than to injure any of our wonderful passengers. touch wood it hasnt happened to me.i did hear of a driver that threw the conductress up the bus and broke her arm and went on to have 6 accidents in 3 months!!!
One emergency stop and you get more PI claims than there were bodies on the bus.
Saratoga:
bald bloke:
and have that yellow square sign with children on. I might try and dig deeper and this is a genuine case of think of the children.
This bus has been used for school/educational purposes in the past yet is not a dedicated school bus. The sign is on little sticky feet.
It does have seatbelts fitted as well
(Mercedes Cimo 33 seater on an Atego chassis, 6sp manual box)
Our local kids have this reguarly, gits!!
my old boss would regularly send the 34 seat full leather tri-axle corporate coach out on school jobs, used to send it away on megabus work as well!
The benefit of sending a larger coach on a school run/school outing is that there is an onboard loo. However, I know not of any company locally that would send a magnificent coach as that tri-axle double deck beast in that image.
Lucky tykes!
Clearly someone was thinking of the children when that was sent out!!!
Piston broke:
bald bloke:
Gogan:
Standing passengers are perfectly legal even on school buses, and naturally no seatbelt is available to be worn if you are standing.There is still no law stating that seat belts must be fitted on school buses, however many local authorities will insist on them in order to service the contract.
If seatbelts are fitted, then children 14 or over must wear them according to the law. Children under 14 are exempt from wearing them provided the bus has a MGW greater than 3.5t (and a few other criteria that I can’t recall at the moment).It matters not whether the vehicle is on a motorway or other type of road.
Well I’ve done some googling and this ^ seems spot on, I can only prey my daughters bus doesn’t get involved in an accident whilst on the motorway.
Bald bloke
Not sure where you are but I’m fairly sure that around here (North east Bristol) a condition of the bus companies getting the school contracts is that they have seat belts fitted…
I’m West Bristol but god knows where the bus comes from as it starts picking up kids about an hour before the other side of Bristol.
School Contracts are legislated by the local authorities, so what is permissable in one part of the Country may not be allowed in another.The buses have to be checked every 6 weeks so they might look tatty but still have to meet legal requirements.
Saratoga:
The benefit of sending a larger coach on a school run/school outing is that there is an onboard loo. …
I remember back when I was in school, It wasn’t all that long ago in the grand scheme of things. We were always under strict instruction we were to go nowhere near the coaches toilet! 
Perhaps there was an extra charge for emptying and cleaning that the school was attempting to dodge. 
After around 7yrs driving busses (and coaches), and with the idiots on the road, I’d had a good few accidents in busses with no seatbelt, and I doubt your daughter has anything to worry about.
I once hit a car so hard that the drivers seat back collapsed and he was looking out of his sunroof, 1 corner of the bumper had popped off and 1 headlight had popped out, both on spring clips and went back in just as easily, I’d issued 22 tickets and recorded 4 passes, yet had 85 claims of injuries put in off ‘my passengers’.
Had a massive queue of passengers getting on the bus at a bus stop once, had been there for around 3-4 mins when the last person boarded the bus, they apologised to me, I asked what for, and she said she’d just driven into the back of the bus, I didn’t even know, BUT I had 3 claims for whiplash
The only time you’d really know about an accident involving a bus would be if it hit something bigger or fell over, in both of these, the seatbelt is unlikely to be THAT much help.
I found dedicated school journeys (when I was on coaches) were comfortably timed and no need to rush about or drive like an idiot, but scheduled ones (on busses) used to be timed extremely tight and the kids were much worse on the bus ones than the coach ones, opening the emergency exits, hitting the buzzers, smoking / setting fire to seats etc etc
God I miss that job… NOT
Having driven coaches with and without I do find that having one on board is beneficial for not stopping at services and cracking on.
The last time I did a run I still ended up stopping as the youngsters didn’t want to use the loo. This turned out to just be a euphemism that they wanted access to shops before getting into the City and to their match and the ‘5’ minute stop turned into half an hour and they were late for the game. However, the adults on the trip were clearly in some, ahem, distress. I would put that down to the beer they had drunk and we had a cross-country diversion when the motorway was closed
I was often on a route that was a service bus but it covered the school services and the bus company frequently wanted us to load the bus until all space was taken by passengers, sitting or standing, upstairs or downstairs.
I pointed this out to the company that this wasn’t allowed but no one listened, so I would take a rough count and when the passenger number limit was reached plus 10 percent I would stop picking up passengers.
Other drivers on the routes knew about this too and also adopted it, and within a week 2 extra double deckers were moved onto that route during the rush and that just caught up the slack of the others that couldn’t board.
Then there were other times that per the route plan the company HAD to put on at least 6 double deckers on that route during the peak periods but somehow kept having problems and rather than put on a DD they put a ‘midi’ bus on. AKA The Breadvan (Optare Solo). Plus a few singles. I knew they were going to get into trouble for that but just followed the rules. Although I was frequently abused by the company traffic officers for sticking to these rules telling me that they were ‘optional’.
Then again, I would say I had the most trouble from children on the buses, more often high-school age than younger. Criminal damage, assault, unsuitable behaviour, smoking, drugs, drinking (alcohol) and whatever happens, you can’t put them off the bus or complain to them, or say anything. If one is kicking the [zb] out of another passenger you can do nothing but stay in the cab and contact the company via radio (when it worked) and hoped they would have someone to help you out.
I had a youngster that repeatedly smashed his face on the cab door until he was bleeding, then smashed all the windows on the bus until I handed back his pass. Which I didn’t have as he had put it down next to the ticket machine and one of his mates had picked up.
It was a stressful job and TBH I should have adopted the DILLIGAS attitude earlier in regards to tickets as they were the main problems for youngsters. Mostly, that they didn’t have them and expected free travel wherever they wanted in the area whilst still continuing to smoke dope…
Coach work is a tad more civilised.
maybe we could have a bus&coach forum there must be loads of psv/hgv drivers out there .lots of funny stories etc .what about it mods?
