A comparison case

Good thing the weather was so nice on Tuesday ... From The Star:

A school bus driver was fired this week after failing to notice a kindergarten student asleep in the back of the bus.

The driver had finished dropping children off from school and had parked the vehicle Tuesday afternoon at the Durham school bus headquarters in Merriam.

Leigh Ann Neal, a spokeswoman for the Shawnee Mission School District, said the driver neglected to follow routine procedure and check to see if all the children were off.

Regular reader Mikeybackwards sent this one along. If a parent had done this, there'd probably be a criminal charge, right?

Comments

[Searching]

It is like comparing apples and oranges, you are trying to compare a parent deliberately leaving their child in a car, to go shopping or whatever, and someone accidentally leaving a child on a school bus.

If something had happened because of this.. there would definitely be charges.

[Mikeybackwards]

Searching,

I have seen several cases over the years of parents doing something like this and facing charges, even when nothing happened to the kid. Generally the charge is neglect or some such. I am not saying the driver should be charged, just that I think if it had been a parent, especially given the extremely cold weather, that there would most likely be charges.

[srose]

thats crazy. the poor guy, how often does a kid fall asleep and sleep THAT hard?

wonder how long the kid stayed on the bus, and if his parents CALLED and checked on his whereabouts when he didn't come home?

[Jonathan]

I thought it was standard procedure to walk to the back of the buse and back when the driver was done to ensure that all kids were off the bus. I have even seen signs up in the back window saying that kids were onboard and the driver had to remove that sign before parking the bus at the end of the day. Poor driver was probably in a hurry to get home and catch some Wheel of Fortune.