For clarity, I'm talking here about the bus services the schools arrange for kids who live more than a mile from the school. They run set routes, only for the kids of one school. The local comprehensive has about 6-8 double deckers worth of such services (1300+ kids - clearly not all on buses)
Now think about America. They have shiny school buses, with additional safety features, padded seats with belts (safety), relatively new, tannoys, and specific road rules governing them (they get priority, you cannot pass them etc).
I am aware there are several similar buses going in west yorkshire, but this is an exception (and only about 5 were ever bought back in 2000 iirc).
In the most part, this is what I see around Doncaster:
20+ year old huge double deckers (the ones with two rear axles - 4 wheels each side on the back), painted (looks like 1coat gloss badly applied) an awful shade of green with no operator logo on them. Crammed to the top deck roof with kids. The original bench seats with no belts. Very noisy (even inside) and polluting (probably inside too). I have been behind them, and actually noticed a distinctive slant on them.
When I was at this school, Yorkshire Traction provided the bus service for the school. Bus they were always sending threatening letters to the parents saying they will have to withdraw service if the level of misbehaviour continues. Clearly this has happened (and YT are now Stagecoach), and the school has sourced some other company to provide transport, who use even worse buses than YT used to use (and they were sheds back then!).
Why do we provide kids with such substandard transport? Perhaps if some investment was shown to them, they wouldn't be so rowdy and misbehave? Then again, kids will always vandalise shiny things these days. Can we win? The Americans seem to have got it right.
Now think about America. They have shiny school buses, with additional safety features, padded seats with belts (safety), relatively new, tannoys, and specific road rules governing them (they get priority, you cannot pass them etc).
I am aware there are several similar buses going in west yorkshire, but this is an exception (and only about 5 were ever bought back in 2000 iirc).
In the most part, this is what I see around Doncaster:
20+ year old huge double deckers (the ones with two rear axles - 4 wheels each side on the back), painted (looks like 1coat gloss badly applied) an awful shade of green with no operator logo on them. Crammed to the top deck roof with kids. The original bench seats with no belts. Very noisy (even inside) and polluting (probably inside too). I have been behind them, and actually noticed a distinctive slant on them.
When I was at this school, Yorkshire Traction provided the bus service for the school. Bus they were always sending threatening letters to the parents saying they will have to withdraw service if the level of misbehaviour continues. Clearly this has happened (and YT are now Stagecoach), and the school has sourced some other company to provide transport, who use even worse buses than YT used to use (and they were sheds back then!).
Why do we provide kids with such substandard transport? Perhaps if some investment was shown to them, they wouldn't be so rowdy and misbehave? Then again, kids will always vandalise shiny things these days. Can we win? The Americans seem to have got it right.
