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Like many of you, I’m trying to improve my knowledge, skills and performance by taking night classes. Each Wednesday evening, I settle in for a 3 ½-hour class in a meeting room at a local hotel. The subject matter is interesting. The instructor is excellent. But no matter how distracted I am by the proceedings, my chair starts to feel hard by about the third hour.
Read More →I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the bridge collapse in Minneapolis. It's now considered the worst disaster in Minnesota history, and the horrifying images certainly will endure in my memory for years to come. As you might expect, a lot of attention was placed on the school bus that was on the bridge during the collapse. I don't know if it qualifies as a miracle that none of the passengers was killed, but it's pretty close. The vehicle, which was carrying 62 people, is estimated to...
Read More →I traveled recently to attend an industry conference. My flight was delayed for four hours, which didn't put me in a particularly good mood when I arrived at the destination airport. Things got worse, however, when I tried to get a cab ride to my hotel. There were two taxis waiting at the cab line. By this time it was almost midnight, and there were no other customers in sight. I thought they'd be glad to see some business headed their way.
Read More →Everyone wants to be loved. It's a survival instinct. The more people who love you, and the fewer who hate you, the better the chance that you'll live a long life uninterrupted by attacks on your character and person.But leaders, such as transportation directors and other managers, aren't in their positions to be loved. They're in their positions to get a job done as efficiently and safely as possible. If they happen to be liked, or loved, by their employees, that's a bonus, but it's not...
Read More →I read an interesting article in the Houston Chronicle about the difficulty the local transit agency has had in recruiting Hispanic employees. The agency's efforts to bring more Hispanics into its ranks included advertising in the newspaper and on the radio, as well as Spanish-language TV. It also attended job fairs and held its own job fairs. To no avail. In trying to fill 250 spots for bus drivers, it hired 10 Hispanics.
Read More →Why do we stay at one job longer than others? I've been here at School Bus Fleet Magazine for almost 13 years. The longest I stayed at any previous job was five years or so. Early in my career, I left some jobs after only a year.
Read More →A recent article in the Baltimore Sun discusses the use of GPS technology to allow parents to track the whereabouts of their children. The reporter engaged the issue by interviewing a mother who bought her 7-year-old daughter a cell phone equipped with a GPS tracking device after the girl was put on the wrong school bus by a substitute teacher.
Read More →If you're like me, you're constantly putting out fires. Most of them are small and don't require much thought or enterprise. But they sure add up! Over the course of a day, I attend to dozens of things that were not on my to-do list. Some of them could have been postponed, but they were easy to resolve and gave me a small sense of accomplishment.
Read More →Ever wonder why school bus crashes, even minor ones, tend to receive wide, out-of-proportion coverage in the local news? And the regional and national news, as well, depending on the casualty count? It's pretty simple, really. Stories about endangered children, especially if accompanied by photos or video footage, pique a community's interest. Local residents might have a friend or relative who attends the involved school. Plus, traffic accidents have high curiosity value, which may explain...
Read More →The two most populous states in the nation — California and Texas — now have laws on the books requiring school buses to be equipped with lap-shoulder seat belts for passengers. Texas joined California last week when its governor, Rick Perry, signed a bill requiring all new school buses bought after Sept. 1, 2010, to have three-point belt systems.
Read More →I've started taking the bus again. No, not to school. That was many decades ago. Now, I'm riding the local transit bus to the office about once a week. But I'm finding many similarities to my school bus ride from so long ago.
Read More →I read an interesting thread in our Forum about whether bus drivers should be allowed to yell at their passengers. Most of the respondents believe it's OK, and often necessary, to yell at students. Others said department policies prohibited them from doing so. As the father of two boys, ages 6 and 8, I can assure you that I occasionally have to, uh, speak loudly to get their attention. They get so involved in what they're doing that they don't otherwise hear me. It's only rarely that I yell...
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