Good grief,schools about to start!! I want to know WHY there is so much traffic generated when this happens?! Good lord havn't people heard of SCHOOL BUSES???????And they're just as bad.I swear to ya they sit there and watch me come at them in my little Echo and when I'm 2-3 car lengths from them they pull out!And here we go again...down on rt9 at the 7-11 some "dudley do-right" is gonna stop and 100 school buses are gonna come sailing out taking forever to get done...UGH!
I say let them sit there and WAIT just like the rest of us! They aren't special.And don't nobody give me that crap about a "special cargo".Tough!Schools start early here so there is no reason for them to be driven to school like they're royalty.I CAN see picking them up AFTER because of appointments and sports and such,but in the mornings???

Thank you for letting me vent

What's your commute like ???

I drive 55 miles each way to work in Reston...I travel
Route 9 from Charles Town all the way to Leesburg...
Thank God I've grown accustomed to getting up at 4AM
to beat the traffic (and the school buses) in the AM, but
I do find myself behind one or two some afternoons....

You want to see traffic? Try Fairfax County when school
is in session !! Every kid that can hold a driver's license
has a car that he/she just has to drive to school. Otherwise,
the less fortunate just have to have mommy or daddy drop
them off because they wouldn't be caught dead at a bus stop.

My work day ends at 2:30PM, and it's all I can do to skeedaddle
my way through Loudoun County and back over the mountain to
where it's safe. Traffic can get bad around here at times, but
you ain't seen nothing unless you've tried to get to Tyson's
Corner for a 9AM meeting !!!

I'm talking about rt.9 over here in hedgesville.All the schools are right off the main road or 1 block away(middle school).I tell ya those 4 lanes they keep talking about will sure help!

Why do so many kids in elementary and junior high ride with their parents anyway? I, and most of my friends, all rode the bus until we got to high school, and most of us turned out okay.

Don't you know? It's not cool to ride the "Cheese Wagon" anymore.

What I find sickening is these 16-18yro driving nicer cars than me. Chaulk another one up to spoiled brats!

Who cares? If I was a parent I would say that you're riding the bus anyway, and to just tell your friends that your Father makes you! With my wife and I working we would not simply have enough time to drop the kids off at school, and then make it to work in time, someone would be late.

As for traffic, something drastically needs to be done! What ever happened to the freeway type bypass that was supposed to go around Martinsburg? Then driving from Chas Town to Dulles is a nightmare, with all that traffic on that "little" road.

Just so you know I was being sarcastic.

I too had to ride the bus until I saved up enough money to buy myself a car (1985 Chevy Cavalier 1500 bucks)
. I also remember way back my high school only allowed juniors and seniors to drive and park at school just for the simple fact the parking lot could only hold so many cars.

What the school (Im assuming this is Hedgesville) needs to do is not expand the road in front of the school but to build an alternate route for the buses to exit the school from. Because when you let a flow of school traffic out on "main road" there will always be major backups no matter how wide they make that road.

Well this thread certainly struck a nerve, because I am a (gasp!) school bus driver. I drive in Jefferson County so I've never pulled out in front of you WVDragonlady (atleast I hope I haven't anyway.....LOL). I just hope you don't judge all of us by the actions of a few. As for your remark about "special cargo", do you have a child that rides a bus? If not, then maybe you wouldn't understand, but if you do then I'm sure you would want your child to make it to school or home in one piece. But of course if a bus pulls out in front of you that's not helping my argument any (but as I said, don't judge all of us by one person's mistake).

I know people hate to get behind school buses. I know I do when I'm not driving one. But I must say I never realized how many idiots there were on the roads until I started driving a bus. Do you realize how many people pull out in front of us on any given day, causing us to slam on our brakes and expect us to stop on a dime to prevent from rear ending them (and look at me like I did something wrong? ) I have people pull out in front of me like they just have to beat me, only to drive slower than I am and hold me up.

Route 9 from Charles Town to the Virginia line is a VERY busy road in the mornings and afternoons. My high school route used to be on that road. I realize traffic gets backed up quickly with a bus stopping and picking up/dropping off kids, and alot of the stops I would pull off the road to let off the kids (on the mountain you pretty much have to with the curves and hills). But if we pulled off the road everytime we got a line of traffic behind us, we would never stay on track, or get back onto the road for that matter. We do have a schedule to keep. I can't tell you how many times a car will stay on my bumper when I'm trying to go up the mountain. if I'm going too slow, it's not because I want to. School buses can't zoom up the hill at 65mph like most of the traffic tries to. And if you are a commuter and you know you get behind the same bus in the same spot everyday, is it too hard to adjust your schedule by 5 minutes or so to maybe get ahead of it?


As for someone holding up traffic to let buses out of a school, yeah, we appreciate it. But I'm sure you don't if you're trying to get somewhere. If nobody lets me out it doesn't bother me. But I am grateful if someone does.

And do you realize how many drivers are blind (or I should say "choose" to be blind) to red flashing lights and a stop sign? ALOT!! When I have kids that need to cross in front of the bus, they know to look up at me and wait for me to "signal" them across the road. I have been stopped, lights on, kids just about to cross when a car has come at me in the opposite direction and flew right past me like I wasn't even sitting there. I wouldn't want to think what would have happened if kids had already started crossing the road.

People always ask me how I can stand being a bus driver with all of those screaming kids. Well for one thing, my kids on my bus don't scream because I would never allow it. Not all kids are bad, and I have a great group of kids.

It just upsets me when people don't realize the responsibility we have, and the people that perceive us as "nobodys" just because we don't have college degrees. Maybe we don't need a college education to be a bus driver, but most people don't realize the training we go through before we are put behind the wheel of a bus. Not only before we start driving, but the continued training we go through as well. I don't know if alot of perople realize it or not but we are also trained in CPR and First Aid.

Yeah, I could find another job. But I like doing what I do. I just hope I didn't make any enemies here. But I just felt I need to state my opinion from a bus driver's point of view.

geez,iwas just venting bout all the traffic!?

I'm sorry if I misinterpreted your post. The first part of my post was about traffic and school buses, but I guess I may have rambled on a bit much after that. So I'll just say thank you for letting me vent.