Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why America has a school bus driver shortage

thehustle.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 74 posts

Re: Why America has a school bus driver shortage

#31

Post by ghoward »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #9
ghoward wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I trained as a school bus driver, and I agree with both of you, but especially the dealing with children part. I quit my job as a bus driver on my second day because I was stressed out about hurting kids. (Yes, I know school buses are among the safest vehicles on the road; it was an irrational fear.) But the other part of the equation is the schedule. You are hired as a part-time employee, no benefits, but the schedu…

Bus drivers get benefits in the district I live in and the pay is not too bad. Still, I'd never consider it because the kids part.

I'd love to get benefits.

Curious: does your district have a shortage too?

If not, maybe the benefits make the difference?

Re: Why America has a school bus driver shortage

#32

Post by mhb »

rgbrenner wrote: post #15

"There's a lot of downtime during the day that you don't get paid for. You might work a 10-hour day, but you only get compensated for your shifts. .... [Corey Ford] as a driver, he earned $19/hr, which works out to a pre-tax income of ~$19.4k for 180 days of 5-hour shifts." Imagine a job that required your entire day, but they decided not to pay you during the late morning through the early afternoon. This has got to…

OK. But you left out this part ...he realized that he made more money off of unemployment benefits (~$2k/month) than he did as a bus driver.

Re: Why America has a school bus driver shortage

#33

Post by AnthonyMouse »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #20
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this point to a solution in the form of using smaller vehicles that don't require a CDL? School buses are super inefficient because kids are all spread out, so you end up driving a huge 6 MPG diesel a lot of miles to pick up 40 kids. Or worse, driving it a lot of miles to pick up less than 40 kids. If you used smaller vehicles to pick up the same number of kids, you would need more of them, but they would each o…

If you're going to hire more drivers, might as well instead pay your existing drivers more. You'll get drivers that are more skilled and care more. Do you really want the equivalent of an Uber driver taking your kid to school each day?

> If you're going to hire more drivers, might as well instead pay your existing drivers more.

They already get paid more than Uber drivers. The problem is that "more" isn't enough right now, and there comes a point where the alternative is less expensive.

> You'll get drivers that are more skilled and care more.

There isn't a "caring" section on the CDL test. Why is the assumption that anyone without a CDL is some kind of negligent drug addict?

Re: Why America has a school bus driver shortage

#34

Post by ghoward »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #12

There isn’t a labor shortage. There’s a shortage of people willing to be abused and exploited. I don’t think any amount of money would be enough for me to work with retail customers again. Much less unruly kids that you can’t do anything about. If it’s between your story and the story the kid told their parents, you’ll lose that battle most of the time and likely end up getting yourself in more trouble than you alrea…

> If it’s between your story and the story the kid told their parents, you’ll lose that battle most of the time and likely end up getting yourself in more trouble than you already were.

You're not wrong, but I wanted to add to it.

This is the reason the district where I live has 7 cameras per bus, 4 of which are inside, IIRC.

Those cameras bring big peace of mind.

Re: Why America has a school bus driver shortage

#35

Post by egypturnash »

gruez wrote: post #23
egypturnash wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure can't use any of the $173 million they made in profit last year, though.

They could, but they don't because it's not their responsibility. Likewise, should we shame rich silicon valley knowledge workers because they didn't pay to keep their local restaurants afloat during the pandemic?

No, but we should shame the rich silicon valley workers for participating in the same kind of relentless race to find perfectly functioning systems that they can wedge themselves into the middle of and extract profit from while making life for everyone else a little shittier, just as we should shame the for-profit bus companies.

Oh, and we should also shame the elected officials that keep on cutting the amount of money being given to public education. And possibly everyone who votes for them, as well.

Re: Why America has a school bus driver shortage

#36

Post by AnthonyMouse »

jltsiren wrote: post #30
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this point to a solution in the form of using smaller vehicles that don't require a CDL? School buses are super inefficient because kids are all spread out, so you end up driving a huge 6 MPG diesel a lot of miles to pick up 40 kids. Or worse, driving it a lot of miles to pick up less than 40 kids. If you used smaller vehicles to pick up the same number of kids, you would need more of them, but they would each o…

Good solutions to labor shortages rarely involve making things more labor-intensive. In wealthy countries, labor costs are already much higher than the costs of operating the bus itself. (People often claim 70% vs. 30%.) If the economy grows in a way that benefits the working class, labor becomes even more expensive relative to the vehicle. The key to cost-effective services is therefore minimizing the number of peop…

> Good solutions to labor shortages rarely involve making things more labor-intensive.

Good solutions to skilled labor shortages frequently involve replacing the skilled labor with a larger amount of unskilled labor.

Re: Why America has a school bus driver shortage

#38

Post by systemvoltage »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #12

There isn’t a labor shortage. There’s a shortage of people willing to be abused and exploited. I don’t think any amount of money would be enough for me to work with retail customers again. Much less unruly kids that you can’t do anything about. If it’s between your story and the story the kid told their parents, you’ll lose that battle most of the time and likely end up getting yourself in more trouble than you alrea…

I'd argue that the problem is inflation.

Re: Why America has a school bus driver shortage

#40

Post by TedShiller »

InvertedRhodium wrote: post #39
TedShiller wrote: post #37

There is no labor shortage. There's currently an excess of unemployment benefits. There's no point in working when you make less than not working.

Sounds like a wage shortage is also a possible explanation.

Sure, benefits currently exceed wages. You can't blame them for not working, it's the rational thing to do.
Post reply on HN