Child Gets on Wrong Bus . . . Every Parent's Nightmare?

GipsyQueen

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#21
Our busses weren't allowed to leave before we were all acounted for. :eek:

Also in Kindergarden we had big pins that had our bus number on it. I had a huge kite shaped number 7 on my at all times. :rofl1:
 

Tortilla

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#22
I got on the wrong bus for my first day of highschool LOL. it was terrible. I ended up out at a school that couldn't have been further away from the school I was supposed to be at.

I told the bus driver what happened and he got on his little radio thing and asked if anyone was headed out that way and if they could take me. Another bus driver came and got me and took me to his bus. He stopped at Tim Hortons (coffee shop) on the way over to my school (he had elementary school pick up at the corner of the intersection where my highschool was... convenient lol) and he got me a donut and a hot chocolate lol.
Bahaha, did you end up at Medway by chance? :rofl1: When I lived in London I went to Medway and it was pretty out there!

I only ever took the bus when I was in high school, and no one kept tabs on who was on which bus. But yeah, we were in high school, so it's not like we were five or anything.

One time when I was like eight I walked home from school instead of going to the after school programme (it was a looooong) walk, and my mum went to pick me up and I wasn't there. And she was suuuuuuuper mad. I'll never forget that lecture!
 

sparks19

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#23
Bahaha, did you end up at Medway by chance? :rofl1: When I lived in London I went to Medway and it was pretty out there!

I only ever took the bus when I was in high school, and no one kept tabs on who was on which bus. But yeah, we were in high school, so it's not like we were five or anything.

One time when I was like eight I walked home from school instead of going to the after school programme (it was a looooong) walk, and my mum went to pick me up and I wasn't there. And she was suuuuuuuper mad. I'll never forget that lecture!
HAHA yeah Medway is pretty out there lol

No I ended up out at Regina Mundi College (which is not actually a college... it's highschool lol) which is out towards St Thomas. it's also pretty out there lol. there aren't any stores or restaurants or even houses near by lol just the school out in the middle of nowhere :rofl1:

It was bad enough as a highschool aged kid lol I couldn't imagine if I ended up out there as a 5 year old :rofl1:
 

stardogs

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#24
When I was in 3rd grade, I used to go home with a friend after school on certain days. Well one day she was home sick, but I didn't know what else to do, so I got on her bus like normal and got off at her house. I didn't want to disturb her or her mom since she was sick so I walked past the house and into the woods behind. It was a warm day (70s) and sunny, so I plopped down and ended up falling asleep.

I woke up to people calling my name so I walked out of the woods....and into a swarm of people including my friend's mom, my parents, the bus driver, and the police, plus some neighbors. Everyone was sure I had had something awful happen to me since no one had seen me after I got off the bus. Yea I was horribly embarrassed and my parents were very relieved.

A little girl getting off the bus at her own house and staying with a neighbor sounds like a normal plan of action for a locked out latch key kid to me, though I'm sure it was scary for the parents. Imagine what they would've said if she had camped out in the woods like me?!
 

Sweet72947

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#25
This thread reminds me of the time I got on the wrong bus. I was middle-school aged, and I stayed after for something, and took the activity bus home. But I took the WRONG activity bus home, and went in the completely opposite direction of my house, and when all the other kids had gotten off at their stops and I was the only kid left, the bus driver asked me where I was going, and when I told her she took me straight back to the school and then to the office where they called my mom to pick me up. My mom had been getting really worried because it was really late, like 6:00, by the time they called her.

I remember that we had to have a note if we wanted to go home on the bus with a friend, or even just get off at a different stop on our regular bus's route.
 

Laurelin

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#26
I have a vivid memory of getting on the bus for home when I was supposed to be a car rider to go to a doctor's appointment and my mom following the bus in her car and me knowing I was in big trouble when I saw her. lol

Josie did the same thing as this story and ended up locked out of the house and at the neighbor's house. It scared her, but she survived okay.
 

Tortilla

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#27
HAHA yeah Medway is pretty out there lol

No I ended up out at Regina Mundi College (which is not actually a college... it's highschool lol) which is out towards St Thomas. it's also pretty out there lol. there aren't any stores or restaurants or even houses near by lol just the school out in the middle of nowhere :rofl1:

It was bad enough as a highschool aged kid lol I couldn't imagine if I ended up out there as a 5 year old :rofl1:
Yeah St. Thomas is out in the middle of nowhere. :rofl1: How traumatising for you! At least you got some Tim's out of it though!
 

sparks19

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#28
Yeah St. Thomas is out in the middle of nowhere. :rofl1: How traumatising for you! At least you got some Tim's out of it though!
LOL it was. I think the distance between the two schools is something like 13 Km's or something and I came from a town that wasn't that far from one end of town all the way to the other hahaha. So I was really out of my element :rofl1:

but yes it's always a good day if you end up with Timmies lol
 

yoko

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#29
It may just be because of me going to a country school but I kind of feel like there was an over reaction here.

I know that I got off the bus on places I wasn't suppose to. When I didn't end up at home the first thought in my mom's mind wasn't 'dear god where is my child??' her first thought was to call the neighbors and my friends parents. Is this step just skipped in people's minds nowadays?

And secondly does the bus driver have to wait and watch each child? That seems like a lot of time the bus drivers could... you know finish their route. I know if I had to wait for EVERY child to make it to their door and signal to the bus driver they were ok and could get in I'd have been ANNOYED beyond belief because a 1 hour bus ride would have been more like a 2 hour bus ride.

I know everyone is jumping on the bus driver but is there not responsibility on the parents at all?

By preschool I knew if something happened and for some reason if my parents weren't home I was dropped of either by friends or the bus I was to go to the neighbors and call them or my grandparents. By kindergarten there was a key hidden so if anything like that happened I could at least get into my own house to call.

I realize this would be scary for a parent but it sounds like the parents jumped to conclusions and totally blew this out of proportion.
 

sparks19

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#30
I din't think they jumped to conclusions. They didn't really know their neighbor so why would they have it set up for the child to go the home of someone they don't know? Thu made arrangements and that was for an after school program. How much else should they have prepared? If thu were friends with the neighbor it would be differet but they didn't really know them.

They got a call saying the child didn't come to the afterschool program an HOUR after the child should have been there and then got no answer at the school and at that point (an hour later) they hadn't heard from anyone else knowing the where abouts of the child.

If i ended up at a friends house after school it wouldn't have take. Their parents long to let my mother know I was there

Of course it was an over reaction. The parent was probably in panic mode which is completely understandable and normal IMO. Especially in todays world where child abduction is thrust in our faces at every turn (even though logic says its not as common as it seems but there is no logic in moments of panic)

After school program calls says child is not there, no answer at school... Parent can't think of anywhere the child could possibly be. When I was 5 years old I know I didn't have friends I would randomly decide to go home with. I had friends but at that age I didn't have friends that were that close that I would just up and go to their house after school
 

stafinois

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#32
That happened to me a couple of times as a small child, and after a scare everybody was fine.

It can run into a problem though in the winter in cold climates. My cousin got on the wrong bus in kindergarten or first grade, realized his mistake and got off with the intention of walking home. Well, it was a couple of miles home, and it was -40 with the windchill. That could have ended badly, probably not death but terrible frostbite. Fortunately somebody recognized him walking down the street alone and picked him up. Yay for small towns!
 

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