Posted on 01/20/2005 4:49:01 AM PST by Behind Liberal Lines
SYRACUSE NY--When Lynnee Westbrook thinks about what her son went through her eyes well up. She says her two children take the school bus everyday, so she can't understand why the vice principal at McKinley Brighton told her 5-year-old son to walk home.
Under school policy, students must live more than a mile and a half to be bused. School spokesperson Neil Driscoll says Kevin is listed as a walker and lives on Newell Street, a block away from the school. Westbrook says they actually live on West Brighton Avenue and she doesn't know how the school got that information. She says her son walked several blocks to his daycare, where he gets dropped off after school.
"My baby who is 5-years-old who never walked anywhere a day in his life has to cross over major intersections to get to school to daycare. I felt that was very unacceptable," Westbrook said.
Westbrook says when she contacted the school, the vice principal had no knowledge of her child and said her son may have gotten confused with another conversation she was having with an older student.
"What's the need for him to walk? Why wasn't I informed? If he if missed his bus or whatever, you know that was my point. Nobody contacted me or they didn't contact emergency contact," Westbrook said.
"It was cold and my stuff was falling down, and I had to put my gloves in my book bag. I put my hands in my pocket," said Kevin Jennings, 5-year-old forced to walk home.
Kevin's mom says she wants to get to the bottom of what went wrong. Westbrook says she plans to get to the bottom of this during a meeting with the vice principal of the school Thursday.
bump
Sad, but true. Here in a MA suburb, some adult has to meet the school bus when the little kid gets off, either that, or he/she's dropped off at a local daycare center.
Rather than quote news clippings, (tragic though they are, they don't tell the whole story), let's review the facts reported by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Injuries per 100 Million Student Trips
School bus ............................... 100
Other bus ................................ 120
Passenger vehicle, adult driver .......... 490
Passenger vehicle, teen driver ......... 2,300
Bicycle ................................ 1,610
Walking ................................. 310
Injuries per 100 Million Student Miles
School bus ............................... 20
Other bus ................................ 20
Passenger vehicle, adult driver .......... 90
Passenger vehicle, teen driver .......... 430
Bicycle ............................... 2,050
Walking ................................. 590
Fatalities per 100 Million Student Trips
School bus ............................... 0.3
Other bus ................................ 0.1
Passenger vehicle, adult driver .......... 1.6
Passenger vehicle, teen driver ......... 13.2
Bicycle ................................ 9.6
Walking ................................. 4.6
Fatalities per 100 Million Student Miles
School bus ............................... 0.1
Other bus ................................ <0.1
Passenger vehicle, adult driver .......... 0.3
Passenger vehicle, teen driver ......... 2.4
Bicycle ................................ 12.2
Walking ................................. 8.7
Here's a link to the full report if you want to read it.
http://trb.org/publications/sr/sr269.pdf
You qouted... 27 deaths x 14 years (1990-2004) = 368 deaths according to your stat.... and... Since 1990, there have been just over 1,300 school bus-related crashes nationwide, according to the latest available data compiled last year by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Those accidents have claimed the lives of 1,450 people, many of them children.
How many? 368 maybe? Too bad the article doesn't specify.
In addition, what the article doesn't say is that the vast majority of those 1,450 involved people who were not even passengers on the bus. They were pedestrians or passengers in other vehicles. In fact, according to the NHTSA, occupants of school transportation vehicles account for just 9% of those deaths.
Fitting school buses with seat belts will have minimal impact, even if you could get the kids to use them.
If you really want your kids to be safe on the road, ban all bicycles, don't let kids drive until they're 21 years old, and trade in the minivan and buy a big yellow bus.
Oh good grief, you think 5 year olds should walk home alone? When YOU were a kid things were a lot different. When these liberal judges stop letting these perverts out and start executing them then I'm walking my 11 year old yes 11 year old daughter everywhere. Better safe than sorry.
A five year old, out alone, is a very easy target. Sad but true. And if the kid had to walk the same route every day, it would give a predator the time to plan out a snatch-and-grab. It's a very, very bad idea to have the kid walk.
So if the kid was raped and released on the same day, s/he wouldn't count as being in the "most serious type" group?
I don't mind sounding like a crank. When I was a kid, you could ride the bus only if you lived more than a mile from school. I lived 9/10 of a mile from school and biked or walked it every day -- in snow -- uphill -- barefoot.
Why wasn't she walking home?
"When my stepdaughter was five, she forgot to get off at her bus stop. "
Whelp, unfortunately there are a few grumpy old men we don't want the five year olds to run into.....
But why would you want to increase the odds against yourself by allowing a five year old to be on the streets during peak "predator" hours (ie before/after school)? Especially in NY/CA, etc. Small town, maybe. Personally, I think mommy should get off her fat butt and walk the kid herself. I work two jobs, and my daughter is escorted to school every day. And she's 14. And a blue belt in Karate. I like my odds a whole lot better than the ones yer giving me. I believe in stacking the deck in her favor. To use the "car" accident theory, I'd rather drive a tank than a gremlin.
"If this is what "Small Government Conservatives" do the minute "the children" need something, no wonder "our" side keeps losing."
To the contrary.......these parents object to arbitrary governance supplanting their God-given right to oversee their own child. Parents with children in elementray schools these days know that teachers believe the kids belong to the government. That is what is behind the tenor of response.
so.
I respectfully submit you-and the people posting with you-are projecting a conservative mindset on the part of the mother that does not exist in the record.
There is nothing in this particular story that indicates the school was treating the child as government "property" or trying to abrogate a parental decision process.
Instead, even taking the mother's account as gospel, you have a teacher who screwed up, misinterpreted the mother's wishes, and thought a child was supposed to be a "walker," not a "rider."
And you have a mother who, rather than attack the school for defying her parental wishes claimed victimhood over injuries to her child that could have, but didn't occur, as if this was another cup of hot coffee heading toward another lap at McDonalds.
In fact, the tenor of the mother's reaction is not so much that the school usurped parental authority but that she resents their failure in doing so.
And, of course, there is the fact that she places her trust to cure the ill, not in herself, but in the media.
YOU'RE RIGHT.
I thought of that later.
thanks.
Why should we be so complacent with our children's lives?
BTTT!
Ditto to that !!
H*lls bells, back in the mid seventies I stood on the front porch and watched every step my son took for the whole block and a half he had to walk to the bus. Children are too precious to leave unattended for some pervert to grab.
It may be that the father is not interested in seeing or supporting the child.
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