Safe Bus Ride Years / Students confident on bus with Lynn Barber
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No Comments [ Add Comment ]By LORETTA PARK
Standard-Examiner Davis Bureau
lpark@standard.net
CENTERVILLE -- Lynn Barber started driving school buses for the health insurance.
Thirty-one years later, the 55-year-old, self-employed real estate agent and contractor is still driving for Davis School District for the health insurance, but he hasn't needed it for any accidents.
Barber has driven his route safely for 31 years. He, along with fellow bus driver Gary Naylor, was recently honored at a Davis School Board meeting for decades of accident-free driving.
"It is incredible," said Brian Larsen, the district's director of transportation. "It's amazing when you consider the traffic they deal with, loading up 60 kids and 10 special ed kids and turning your back on them so you can concentrate on traffic."
Naylor's route is strictly special education students who need extra attention, Larsen said. He is required to make sure all wheelchairs are tied down, plus run the wheelchair lifts at the stops. He has a bus assistant to help him.
Barber's driving record doesn't seem so incredible to the Centerville Junior High School students he drives home daily.
This year, Barber transports junior high and high school students. He has had years when he also transported elementary and kindergarten students.
On Friday the students loaded up promptly after the bell rang.
"Hello," Barber said to one.
"How are you?" he said to another.
"He's cool," said seventh-grader Drew Barnes, as he settled in one of the front seats.
"He told us the rules the first day, just the stuff we need to know," said Rebekah Cutler, also a seventh-grader.
"He's way safe," Barnes said.
Barber said part of safe driving is letting the students know what he expects from them.
"I don't see the problems others have," Barber said. "Basically, they're good kids."
The students said they know they're expected to stay in their seats while the bus is moving and shut their windows before they get off the bus.
Darrell Bearnson, a bus driver with the district for the past eight years, said he has never seen any students out of control on Barber's bus.
"When I'm behind him, the kids are sitting down," Bearnson said. "Some buses, you see the kids standing up, walking around. He keeps his kids under control."
To become a bus driver takes 40 hours of training, then another eight hours of inservice training once a year, plus five hours of a refresher course every five years, Larsen said.
Larsen said there is a high turnover rate for bus drivers because the job is a split shift.
"It's hard on bus drivers to come in the morning and then again in the afternoon," Larsen said.
Barber said it's really hard the one Friday every month when the high school students go in at 9:10 a.m., instead of 6:50 a.m.
"You have to really like kids to be in this business," Barber said.
Barber said the tricks to decades of safe driving are being courteous, conscientious and obeying all the traffic laws.
Over the years, he said, he has seen a decrease in respect from vehicle drivers when it comes to the school bus.
"They see a yellow school bus and they either try to beat it or get around it," Barber said.
That's what happened when Barber stopped Friday to drop off the first bunch of junior high students.
A man driving toward them kept coming despite the stop sign extending from Barber's bus and the flashing lights. He did stop when Barber honked his horn.
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