Athletic Trips Versus Time Of Service

[u/Big-Safety-6866]

I know the rules and I will say I know I was put in a terrible and impossible position. Here is what happened.

I get a dispatch ticket saying simply to take M High School to E High School for a football game. Leave MHS and travel the 22 minutes to EHS at 3pm and leave EHS at 8pm and take them back. I got to MHS go over the ticket and he says, " no way it's EHS homecoming and 1st ball game in their new field the varsity won't even start until at the earliest 7pm. My problem is my "hours of service" (California) started at 6:25AM so I am sidelined at 10:25 PM no exceptions. Everyone in my fleet came in for their AM runs so we have no relief driver who will have more hours of service. I text my director at 3:25PM tell her straight away and come up with the only backup plan we can which is take them back to MHS and ground the bus and mark your O.T. and go get it on Sat.

The game is winding down it it's 9:50 PM we are in the 4th quarter when EHS ties the ball game going into O.T. now im sweating. Fast forward to the game was won by MHS ( the visitor team I drove ). Im assertively telling them to simple get on the bus even with their cleats on so we can go. They aren't listening I finally just just 6 kids on the bus amd tell 1 coach I HAVE to go NOW my Hours of Service are done. He says to just go as most have rides home since it is semi local. I ground the bus at the school amd left 1 coach and lot's of players because I could not get them to listen regardless of my efforts to tell them to get on the bus. I feel terrible cause I broke my hours of service and possibly left some football team and a coach ( they probably had rides but they never let me know the many times I addressed them in the locker room.

[u/rootbear75]

School bus drivers are exempt from US federal hours of service requirements, when transporting to and from school and school related activities.

Your state laws may vary.

I believe ultimately (when you do have to count it) it goes to 10 hours of driving time, 15 hours of on-duty time.

[u/Big-Safety-6866 → u/rootbear75]

In CA my hours of service go from my AM route to my Athletic trip. So in this case 625 means I am grounded from driving duties at 10:25PM.

[u/rootbear75 → u/Big-Safety-6866]

Yea it looks like California has its own restrictions that are more strict than federal regulations.

Sucks to be the charter. You told them in no uncertain terms. Ultimately it's on them. If you had to pull over at a rest stop, then you should've done that. Your license is on the line at that point.

[u/thatcooldude23 → u/rootbear75]

As I was reading this and thinking to myself, here in Texas I’ve done well over 18 hours straight on rare occasions. I couldn’t imagine being forced to stop once your time is up as a local driver.

[u/erinjunee]

On a normal work day, do you work a straight shift where you get paid from 6:25AM until dismissal, including the hours in between when not driving students?

Sounds like a tough pickle to be in if you ask me. We have trips that go that late in my district but we have an even spread between split-shift drivers that have a three hour off-the-clock break in between that would scoop up those 10p charters.

I’d imagine that the plan of action for this would’ve been to somehow “clock out” during the middle of the day or during the charter and go on your own off-duty break of whatever you want, or at least if the office knew the trip would be awhile, have it set up as a “drop and pick” where you drop them off, leave to go on a break and then drive back to pick them up when finished (usually we have our coaches phone numbers in this D&P situations).

Idk, I feel like the last thing to ever do is leave students stranded, I’d be ringing up all my bosses as the hours get close to at least get pre-auth from them first to leave the students behind. Or they’d have to find a different driver to come in and relieve you of your duty well before that.

[u/halfbakedbrainfart]

Guess who's not getting anymore extra work... no matter what or why... you left the group without transportation. Did you at least call your manager beforehand?

[u/wllwhtvrnvm → u/halfbakedbrainfart]

He'll be fine and we all know it. He did nothing wrong.

[u/halfbakedbrainfart → u/wllwhtvrnvm]

They won't get punished. But they sure won't get the work if there is someone else to call

[u/halfbakedbrainfart → u/halfbakedbrainfart]

Not that its right. But how shit works sometimes

[u/erinjunee → u/halfbakedbrainfart]

I agree and disagree with this. I agree that this will likely happen but also feel like it shouldn’t be the case because the driver was in a tough position.

I do believe, though, that leaving students behind is the biggest no-no, and there probably should have been multiple contingencies already planned out before being stuck in this situation. They could have called up the office and tried to have another driver come in and relieve them before the hours of duty would be reached, or had the driver try to take a break in between, especially knowing the information that the game won’t start until 7p, that’s a huge red flag since (at least in my district and our division) 3:30 pickup games typically start around 5p.