NY Bus Driver To Girl, 5: 'Find Your Own Way Home'

Mar 6, 2009 7:42 pm US/Eastern
NY Bus Driver To Girl, 5: 'Find Your Own Way Home' Reporting
Jay Dow NEW YORK (CBS/AP) ―

Five-year-old Alaina Stevens says she was left at a street corner by her bus driver, who told her to find her own way home.

She was left alone by an impatient driver.

A 5-year-old girl was stranded at a school bus stop and told to find her own way home.

Alaina Stevens is safe now, but her mother says the kindergartener's well-being was put in serious jeopardy this week when her school bus driver abandoned her on the streets of Corona, Queens – several blocks away from home.

"I was beyond angry," mother Shallah Stevens says. "I want him on a platter."



Alaina told her parents that the bus driver pulled up to a corner blocks away from her home, ordered her to get off the bus, and told her to wait for an adult to pick her up.

"No parent should have to go through this," Shallah says.

Alaina miraculously walked all the way back to her apartment building in Lefrak City unscathed, where she went straight to her babysitter's apartment.

"I said, 'Well how did you get here?' She said, 'I found my way here,'" babysitter Denise Burke says. "I said, 'You crossed the street by yourself? How did you do that?'

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/bus.strands.girl.2.952095.html

will be filled by a more compassionate driver!

and the police are looking into pressing charges. Don't know if the family really have a lawsuit against the Board of Education, though. It's not like this was a policy of either the Board or the bus company. But I bet dollars to doughnuts that this is tweeked around and becomes a Law & Order episode in the near future.

Our bus driver suddenly changed the bus route, stopped in the middle of 6 lane busy traffic and let us all out of the bus and told us everybody get off the bus. And he didn't even wait to make sure that we at least got through to the other side of the street safely. I do remember seeing the faces of the younger Pre Kindergartners that were scared out of their minds. They were only babies. We all made it across the street and the bus driver, a young HS student at the time, lost his job.

and made us walk home. My dad called and complained and the school decided we couldn't ride the bus at all for the rest of the year.

Still pisses me off. And it was 40 years ago.

Its a little kid. 5 year olds are so small and no child that age should be dropped off anywhere alone. Crossing traffic by herself?! I would have had a heart attack if my daughter was by herself like that. Terrible. Crappy pay is no excuse for not being a good human being. Preschool teachers get payed next to nothing and yet many are great with kids and watch them like hawks.

"jury nullification"?

random act of malicious ignorance that seems to be occurring more and more these days.

"reason" - just a cause.

The father must have been freaking out when the kid wasn't on the bus, or at the school.

Poor little kid--that shouldn't happen to anyone. The article notes--TWICE--that the family is looking for a payday and will sue.

The bus company could be paying for that kid's college....

and the hate-filled blowhard who listen to his Republicon 'leadership'

I'm not defending the bus driver, but either this article is poorly written or the bus driver is a patsy.

So, when he let her off the bus was it at the normal place or time? If there is a written policy on not abandoning children, what alternative is provided (what should the bus driver have done) when they reach a scheduled stop on-time and no adult is there? Of course the driver should be more concerned about the welfare of a child rather than his schedule, but are the bus company rules really structured to support that or do they have penalties for tardiness? What if the bus driver had other children to pick up/deliver? Is he provided with a way to make sure they are not "abandoned" or delayed?

I guess I am defending the bus driver, or at least giving him the benefit of the doubt for now. I don't think it's okay that a five year old was left alone in Queens, but it is possible the blame is with the bus company for not providing clear direction on what do do in these situations.

passenger. It would be easily justifiable to the bus company any reasonable tribunal. Otherwise, he could have taken the child to the depot, and phoned for her to be picked up. Or he could have phoned from the bus "en route", to be picked up by police at a particular bus-stop.

In our district, for example, kindergartners whose parents aren't there to meet them are driven back to the school, where they wait under supervision for a parent to pick them up. If parents do this repeatedly, the child can eventually be forbidden from riding the school bus.

Any damn thing except kick a five year old off the bus and tell her to find her own way home.

The clear direction isn't rocket science, regardless of school or company policy. It is: The children on your bus are your responsibility, legally and morally. You do whatever is necessary to ensure their safety.

And yeah, I drove school bus for ten years.

It's a custody thing.

and I remember her making this one girl walk home from the corner because the bus driver didn't want to have to drive down the road to drop her off. now, this was route 20, a busy busy road and there had been a few fatalities on that road. and this girl was 14 and pregnant at the time. i don't think the bus driver would have gotten away with half the stuff she pulled back then today.

and I remember her making this one girl walk home from the corner because the bus driver didn't want to have to drive down the road to drop her off. now, this was route 20, a busy busy road and there had been a few fatalities on that road. and this girl was 14 and pregnant at the time. i don't think the bus driver would have gotten away with half the stuff she pulled back then today.

Go Mom!