Mom Screams At Bus Driver After He Let Her Kindergartener Get Off At The Wrong Stop — ‘Mama I Was Lost’
“I cannot stop thinking of all of the horrible things that could have happened to her.”
ESB Professional | Shutterstock Every parent’s worst nightmare is for their child to go missing. One mom thought she had such an emergency on her hands when her daughter didn’t turn up with her school bus one afternoon.
A kindergartener got off at the wrong bus stop, and her bus driver did nothing to prevent it.
A concerned and upset mom took to Reddit to share what happened to her daughter when she was riding the bus.
“My daughter just started kindergarten two weeks ago and has been riding the bus home,” she explained. “I’m already anxious about her moving around without a parent but she loved the bus so we went with it.”
Sean Locke Photography | Shutterstock
Everything went smoothly until now.
“Today when the bus driver got to her stop she wasn’t on the bus,” she wrote. “I’m always waiting for her at the bus stop and the bus driver just said she got off on a different stop. I was immediately panicked.”
This mom tried to think of where her daughter might go, and thought she could be somewhere else in the neighborhood.
“We go on walks in our neighborhood, and she knows it pretty well, but being dropped off in the wrong place is a different story,” she stated. “I was immediately terrified and ran as fast as I could home.”
Unfortunately, she didn’t find her, and she wasn’t sure what to do from there, especially since she had her youngest child with her.
Thankfully, this story had a happy ending.
“It was probably 10 minutes from the time the bus driver told me she got off on a different stop until he pulled back up with her on the bus,” she continued. “When she got off she hugged me and said, ‘Mama, I was lost,’ and I freaking lost it.”
That was when this mom released all of her pent-up anger on the bus driver who let her daughter get off at what he knew was not her stop.
Mihail Degteariov | Shutterstock
“I screamed at that bus driver more than I have ever screamed at anyone in my life,” she confessed. “I could not believe he would let her get off at another stop, especially without a parent there.”
Despite her detour on the way home, the woman’s daughter was just fine.
“After being home for about 15 minutes she was totally fine. Her normal self,” she recounted. “But I cannot stop reliving it. She showed me where she got lost and told me she walked on a path behind our neighborhood that is backed up to farmland.”
“I’m so at a loss with what to do and I can’t stop reliving the experience,” she concluded.
It’s not entirely clear whether or not it is a bus driver’s responsibility to make sure children get off at the right stop.
There really is little information available to know what the exact responsibilities of a school bus driver are. Certainly they are responsible for the safety of the students on their bus while driving, but it’s hard to tell if that responsibility extends to what happens when they get off the bus.
The South Carolina Code of Laws states, “Parents or guardians are responsible for the safety, conduct, and the timely arrival of their children to, from, and at the designated school bus stop.”
wr heustis | Pexels
Based on this information, it appears that each state could have its own set of laws regarding school buses. Nevertheless, there is no information to suggest that the bus driver is responsible for students once they leave the bus.
While one would assume that a driver could keep an eye out for students, that’s an awful lot of students to look after. Maybe it really is the student’s responsibility to make sure they get off at the right stop.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango who covers entertainment, news, and human interest topics.