Day two of driving 55

[sylvar]

That crazy driver behind me was really up my tailpipe this morning. I looked back in the rear-view mirror and she made a rude, condescending gesture with the back of her hand, fingers splayed out beneath and sweeping forward a few times, as if I were a cat who needed to be shooed out of her way. I made another gesture, then followed it up with a leftward jerk of my thumb to tell her to go ahead and pass me if she were in a hurry. But she stuck to my bumper like I had a trunk full of neodymium magnets, and as soon as I was boxed in by a passing semi, she sped up to intimidate me. Honestly, I was tempted to use my brakes to get her to back off me, but I realized that my car was much smaller than her school bus. Ahem. I'm glad I got her bus number before she turned onto I-4.

Seriously. I expect a certain amount of aggression from my fellow drivers, but I also expect people to refrain from aggressive, intimidating, and dangerous driving when their vehicle is full of children. And I believe that Hillsborough County Schools expects the same.

Photo: "School Bus Top" by Todd Klassy
 

Comments

[tiger-stripes.livejournal.com]

Me too. I hated school bus drivers as a kid, so that probably helps with my perversity of it :-)

It still scares me that school buses do not have seatbelts.

[knobody.livejournal.com]

i don't know about all new busses, but the bus at sagan's school has three lap belts/seat (color coded so they don't get confused). also, part of the safety in school busses is based on compartmentalization, not restraint. high padded seats keep kids confined to a relatively small volume limiting forward and backward motion during a crash. no, it does nothing for rolls and bumps where children leave the seats, but it's better than the perceived nothing. and with the large size/mass of a school bus, rolls are much less common.