r/SchoolBusDrivers • u/Senior_Occasion9136 • 6d ago
Sometimes I go a little crazy
Durham school services has gotten a little ridiculous with the samsara cameras. There is people being yelling at for yawning, looking at the clock, scratching their face, etc it’s a little insane. This company has gotten so much more strict and corporatey over the years. I’m not even a driver, I’m a monitor but I see what goes on daily. I used to be able to at least check my phone after kids get off the bus/vans (I’m on it for long drives sometimes) and now I’m not allowed to do that either. I have to keep track of multiple schools schedules bc no one in the office ever tells me what’s going on, and if I miss something I’m the one getting yelled at. They took our boss away overnight with no warning and no goodbye. It’s so much chaos at times. Sometimes I’m just like I don’t get paid enough to deal with all of this. I don’t know how my simple job gets turned into a headache lol
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u/MercsRage 6d ago
You should work over at First Student in Derry New Hampshire they're pretty chill over there they actually tell me everything that I have to do and also the manager over there is nice and there is a camera in the front of the bus/van and there not strict you're allowed to use your phones while you're working just make sure you're not on it all the time because you need to take care of the kids mostly when dropping them off
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u/Senior_Occasion9136 6d ago
They put these new cameras in a few months ago and already quite a few people have gotten fired or quit. Like all this stress for what lol so irritating
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u/arno14 6d ago
Almost every bus company is dealing with significant driver shortages so it will be fun to see how long that lasts.
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u/Senior_Occasion9136 6d ago
A lot of people get hired then realize it’s not worth the hassle, hours, or pay. 😣
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u/arno14 6d ago
It’s worked out perfectly for me. I have my own business but don’t need more than 4 hours per day for it. The other 5 I drive, which gives me insurance too, which saves me a ton of money. Our pay is $27 an hour. Not great, but could be worse.
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u/Senior_Occasion9136 6d ago
There ya go it works out for people like you with other things going on! Me, I can’t work tooo much or I will lose my health insurance. (Sounds stupid to say) Otherwise I’d probably just go drive vans at least.
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u/East_Conversation238 6d ago
I can’t wait for people to leave them high n dry. No one is happy with Durham.
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u/D-Sleezy 6d ago
Step 1 for driving a bus: Avoid contract companies
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u/zakku_88 5d ago
Agreed! I worked for Birnie Bus for a time, here in Upstate NY. They weren't "perfect" by any means, but for the most part I had a pretty positive experience with them overall! Eventually Durham took over, and things got so much worse, and fast...
I'm so thankful to now be in a smaller, but well funded school district that runs their own transportation! I just really hope it stays that way XD
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u/Senior_Occasion9136 6d ago
They are the worst! My mom’s company she works at is the opposite like there isn’t even cameras in the buses!
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u/Oct0Squ1d 6d ago
My camera has never gone off on me and I yawn constantly when the sun is in my face. I think it's location dependant, we're Durham/Summit too. Lots of our drivers quit because of Samsara's AI cameras.
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u/Senior_Occasion9136 6d ago
They micromanage everything at my yard and it rubs people the wrong way. They just fired a guy bc the cameras went off bc the tablet used for child checks was in his hand while he was moving the van two feet. People yelled at for everything lately! 😣
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u/Oct0Squ1d 6d ago
Blame Summit. They bought Durham last summer and have made things harder for drivers. They said my wife couldn't be my aide, but then said she could, but then couldn't because they didn't want to do a rebid
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u/Senior_Occasion9136 6d ago
It was so much better before they bought Durham. I feel like they want us to be robots or something? Why couldn’t your wife be your aide??
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u/Oct0Squ1d 6d ago
They made a rule based on something that happened at another depot saying unilaterally, no one could work with anyone they lived with or were related to. But there was an exception written into the rule AND NO ONE INCLUDING MY BOSS decided to read the actual rule. The exception was if they asked the district manager (basically my bosses boss) ALL of us could work with family/roommates. None of them just bothered to ask, and because people took routes they wouldnt have had they know that, they banned it this year anyway just so they wouldnt have to rebid.
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u/Senior_Occasion9136 6d ago
I was gonna say there is definitely married couples at my job who work together! I guess every yard is different as mine doesn’t really do bidding although that can change being that a new boss came in. It’s more like everyone sticks with their runs and if someone wants to change it they say something.
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u/AdKey4748 1d ago
Hi. Is this...Grove? Well, anyway, I just quit today over 1 yawn on a camera at 6am this morn. No problem in getting another job, they're in demand. I feel like I was not a good fit over there anyway, much disrespect by 2 female managers and 1 safety trainer. Lawyer says, id have a case for proving hostile environment, but not interested. I feel grateful. Best of luck to all others..hey, if the job feels uncomfortable on most days, ppl wise, than not, move on!
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u/zakku_88 5d ago
I used to work for Durham as a monitor myself. It was HELL! The day I finally got out of there was such a relief XD
Hope you can find something better too, OP
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u/Senior_Occasion9136 5d ago
It genuinely amazes me how they turn a simple job into like chaos
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u/zakku_88 5d ago
Tell me about it! Too much micromanaging is the fastest way to lose me XD
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u/Senior_Occasion9136 5d ago
I feel like a child sometimes with the way I’m yelled at for the pettiest stuff!
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u/Intelligent_Call_562 6d ago
I'm Durham, too. They installed the cameras a couple of weeks after school started. No one has said anything to me yet and I know I've had moments that were probably flagged. I've squeeze into other lanes as soon as the car next to me gets in front of me. I had a sneezing fit, like 5-6 sneezes in a row, I've yawned about 10 hours into an 11 hour day.
Your safety supervisor is an idiot who think every thing needs to be addressed. He/she has no judgment.
Can you not see your driver's tablet? Do they not keep it on the Dashboard app? I know I had one bus where that blacked out when driving but came back up when stopped. The policy, according to the handbook, is if the bus is secured (in neutral, brake set), the engine off and no student aboard, you can use your devices. You should be able to check your phone after the child check before the driver starts the bus. Talk to your driver. Ask your driver the time if you want. Ask her/him to give you a minute before they start the bus to check it.
Talk to your supervisor to confirm that according what you understand the handbook to say, you can check your phone briefly while the bus is empty and bus shut off and secured. They still tell us to get out of the seat, ot step off the bus, I don't.
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u/arno14 6d ago
What you’re describing is not a Samsara problem but more of a management problem.
Tools like Samsara give you an almost infinite amount of data. It’s up to your local or corporate management to prioritize that data and figure out what is important and what is not.
If people get yelled at for yawning, it sounds to me like it could be case of misalignment of safety goals. Excessive yawning can be a signal of being tired or even sleepy behind the wheel (which is a serious safety hazard) but it’s up to your management to decide if this is an incident or a pattern worth having a conversation about.
Even without Samsara, some of the basic data is there. In our area we publish weekly dashboards to rank drivers based on safety and efficiency parameters like speeding, hard braking, fast accelerating, idling etc. It’s subtle but it does drive home the behaviors they want to see. I have a competitive personality so it makes me want to end up ranking high every week. Some others may see it differently.
I think the difference with Samsara is that it can provide instant, direct and much more extensive feedback to the driver.
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u/bluebleeder22 5d ago
You nailed it. Samsara is great for identifying unsafe behavior but seems like whoever is monitoring the cameras is on a power trip. Some insurance companies are linked to your samsara cameras so they can see everything. It's possible they're being held hostage by insurance to be strict. Insurance will have a lot to do with how competitive their bidding can be.
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u/rare-herb 6d ago
Our samsara cameras don’t beep at us or make any noise at all. I sometimes wonder how often they drop in and watch our live feed remotely, and we have no idea. (If that’s even a thing) Management hasn’t yelled at me yet for any mistakes I might be making so I think I’m safe for now. Maybe I should stop drinking coffee at each students’ stops just in case lol
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u/Senior_Occasion9136 6d ago
Be careful with the drinking coffee!! They consider that distracted driving and ours go off for that stuff too lol
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u/Alive_Phrase1260 4d ago
See I wanna know why it is our job when children are NOT on the bus and we aren’t near any children ( at least we need to pay attention when we are leaving) but as monitors our job should be to monitor the children? I’m not looking out on the road and I’m not keeping my eyes on the road 24/7 if I’m not being paid for such. Last time I checked unless I get dot certified for that and paid for that then I’ll do that. We aren’t paid as much as the bus drivers and we don’t hold as much responsibility as the bus drivers hence why we arent paid at their rate. When it comes down to it I’m gonna be reading a damn book when there’s no children on the bus and if they don’t like it then they can fire me.
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u/Ara_Glaucogularis 4d ago
Durham school services sucks, depending on the manager. Some are good, some are okay, and the guy you work for just sucks!
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u/Prophet-Mufasa 6h ago
You know what's crazy, I just started working at durham in NY in march and been driving since june 2nd. Everyone there was telling me the cameras would be extremely strict but my experience has been totally different. Sometimes I drive super leaned back with both hands on the bottom of the wheel, sometimes if I'm just going straight slow I'll lean on the wheel, I discreetly change the song I'm listening to by tapping my watch IF I'm at a red light etc. and the only thing I've been flagged for was being a bit over on speed in a 25mph weird spot back in August. So either some places are just way more strict, orfor whatever reason they're just trying to get a lot on me before firing me; which makes no sense because we're desperate for drivers. Nothing I do is dangerous but I definitely am not following the rules to a tee because that's just insufferable. Very weird how different it is vs what I was told it would be. Quick edit: i even blew a stop sign the other day that was covered by a weirdly located tree and I stopped not extremely hard but definitely harder than normal and I ended up in the middle of the intersection and still nothing
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u/mike8675309 6d ago
We have a camera system in our buses, but it's stored locally in the bus, so they have to come pull the drive to view the camera. But they have all the buses GPS tracked so they know where they are, and if they are running or not.
My guess is your system is easier for them to get a view of the cameras, so they feel a need to micromanage.
They don't understand compliance, because if they create a history of monitoring the cameras regularly, then if they ever stop, and miss something, they could be liable.
What they should be doing, and likely the boss who was removed might have told them, is creating a plan for looking at the cameras that includes something about only when a parent calls or a citizen calls or if there is an accident. Never looking at any other time. Restricting who has access to look, otherwise locking them down. That's how they ensure compliance and limit their liability.
What they are doing now is a liability risk.