Bus blues

LAURA GOULD/Charleston Catholic

By Sarah Abbott
South Charleston High School

You get up at 5 a.m., get dressed, make sure you haven’t forgotten anything important (like homework or pants) and head out to your bus stop. This time of year, it’s cold and you are almost happy to see the bus’ headlights beam at you in the dark.

Almost, but not quite.

There are plenty of complaints about buses, few of them unfounded. For this article, students at South Charleston High School were happy to voice their opinions on riding to and from school in buses.

A common protest was how long students have to sit on the bus.

“I have to be up by 5. I’ve got to be at my bus stop by 6,” said freshman John Vandale. “On the bus, [the driver] leaves the light on. I have to ride an hour and 15 minutes to school, and he leaves the lights on. And he yells at us!”

Vandale may have to get up early for his morning bus, but freshman Jessi Hess has become well acquainted with her afternoon one. She should be — she’s on it for about two and a half hours. Although the bus leaves South Charleston at 2:30, she doesn’t get home until 5 p.m.

She has a simple solution for this problem. “The bus driver refuses to drive down my road the first time we pass it — way earlier.”

Earlier in the year, students were falling off seats because the buses were so crowded. Now that a new model is out, students can fit — but it’s still an unpleasant experience. The seats are like concrete and their knees are pushed into the seats in front of them.

In addition, bus drivers sometimes get upset with students who ask to get off at stops that are infrequently used. It’s perfectly fine to skip a scheduled stop if no one is using it, but when a student does ask to exit there, the driver shouldn’t get angry or refuse to stop. Not all drivers do this, of course, but it’s been noticed several times by students.

“Besides everything else, buses smell like diesel,” added junior Jordan Cobbs.

It’s not that the students across the county don’t appreciate the bus service. They just wish it were an easier ride.