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Think of that headline for a moment, mull it over and really let it sink in. A bus driver and we all know how evil they are, assaults a helpless single mother of two.

Obviously it’s time for the driver to loose his job. Right?

Obviously!

Well I’m that bus driver. I’m that bus driver and I can tell you some day when you wake up after you have your coffee you will check the Internet or flick on the local Portland news you may hear that headline and see my picture. That will be me, the bus driver.

Right now I just got off of an eleven-hour shift, I’m lying in bed unable to get to sleep. Rage burns through every atom of my body and I just can’t calm down. I can’t calm down nor can I back down. I know that someday what I feel may cost me my job.

Now let me tell you another headline.

“Bust driver intervenes to protect innocent child.” 

What headline do you think you are likely to see? I promise you it will not be the second one. I just want you to know ahead of time to be ready for when you read the first headline. This way you can turn to your friends at work and say, “Hey, you may not know the entire story.”

Not that it will matter, not that the media will really care, not that it will save my job. Not that you will be amble to change anyone’s mind about me. What it really comes down t is this. What kind of world do you want to live in? The kind where someone in authority sees trouble and turns the other way tucks tail and runs to save their job and avoids headlines? Or the one where a driver sees trouble and takes action?

So the root of this goes back to the civil war.

“What!” I hear you say “Are you crazy what does the civil war have to do with a single baby mama and a bus driver? 

Hold on! It doesn’t directly, it will just serve to illustrate a point. 

You see there was this problem, and that was Ironclads in the Mississippi river were getting as large as they could while still being able to float down the river. They had as much armor as they could hold and as big a guns as they could carry. They were slow lumbering beast.

Then a smart man came up with an adaptation from Sir Isaac Newton. He came up with F = MV2 or force equals mass times velocity squared.

What this means is say you have an Ironclad in the river that chugs along at 5 MPH and is huge.  Now along I come with a smaller ship one half the size but I go 15 miles an hour. When I hit you I will hit much harder because speed squares the force (For you baby mama’s that means times 4)

What this means is his small, slim. high speed, reinforced rams could cut right through much bigger ships if they got a good solid hit. It worked like a champ no major cannons, just and fast and deadly to any ship they hit. Good old Newton.

Now leap forward to the 70’s and the birth of the child seat. One of the problems is a child sitting in a car that hits a wall at 30 mph, if not secured, continues traveling at 30 mph inside the car until it strikes something like the dashboard or the rear of the front seats. So child seats are really useless if they are not secured. The faster you’re driving the deadlier that civil war formula F=mv2. Even in a car seat there is no protection from Sir Isaac Newton unless that car seat is buckled in.

Same is true of a child standing or sitting on a chair alone or especially in a stroller on a bus.

Not wanting to confuse all the upset baby mama’s out there who are saying “what’s all this history talk and Newton! Shit! didn’t he just make a cookie made of figs or what?” Here is a movie representation of what I’m talking about.

Belted in person, holding a toolbox she thinks is her kid. She’s holding on as hard as she can. Just watch the first two minutes and you will know all you need.

Ok that’s a car but you get the picture. Kid unsecured at high speeds = toolbox through the window. I can promise you no U2 music will accompany this in real life.

Now on a bus we are more limited then a car and we are also much larger so we don’t stop on a dime and with any luck we don’t hit a wall head on. Usually we go through them.  So on a bus we have a simple rule, children have to come out of strollers, and be secured on your lap.  Leaving them in the strollers incase of a collision will turn them into that toolbox.  Leaving them just sitting on a chair… toolbox. letting them stand on your lap holding on to your fingers while you coo and act surprised that they can hold on and pull them selves up…Tool Box.

 The best we can do in a bus is have you hold them. This is not the perfect solution but it is the only one we have. This means… oh lord here comes the science again that your friction with the chair and the ground and ability to hold on will protect you and your child when your child alone would equal TOOLBOX!

Now every day I have women and men get on with babies and I tell them all the same thing “Have to secure the child on your lap” All of them say “I know.” Only about 2/3rds of them do this. That means to one third of them “you have to secure your child on your lap” translates too “Go on and have some fun, hey don’t worry about the kid think of the court case money you will win if the child is hurt? Besides you have all that pressing phone conversation to have right?

Now I really don’t care what other drivers do but knowing a little about history, civil war steam rams, sir Isaac Newton, Trimet rules and having seen the movie fearless a dozen times I know that no kid is turning into a toolbox on my watch. Therefore I don’t roll until every child is 100% secured. Period. Full stop. No more. done.

So this particular baby mama I’m speaking of, my problem is I can’t think of anything good to call her so I will just use Baby Mama. Has ridden my bus three times. Each time she comes on it’s “yeah sure” when I tell her the rules, then I look back an the baby is

1. Still in stroller,

2. put back in stroller after baby was removed to placate me

3. Sitting on bench seat not being held

4 . Standing on mamas lap holding her fingers doing pull ups.

None of these are acceptable.

I advise when they come on, then I warn for lack of compliance. Now I know I shouldn’t be surprised when people who lack the ability to grasp the sentence “you need to secure the child on your lap” don’t understand warnings either but I keep trying like a fool.

So neglecting your child’s safety is something far too many people accept. For my bus to move you must be compliant or I will wait until you are. Some parents will try to outlast me, I never give up, I’m the undisputed waiting king. Some will argue with me. Some demand that I produce some sort of rulebook and show them the rules. Some will call me names. My particular baby mama does all these things. Really short of hitting me with a battle axe I don’t get mad I just wait.

Now I have been polite, nice, humorous, offered to help, told her I have all the time she needs not to rush. Here is the rub, use whatever approach you want but to 1/3^rd of those people who don’t think their childs life or well-being is worth temporary minor discomfort of holding them on their lap, No approach will work. These self posses, self absorbed narcissists are worried about talking on their cell phones, visiting friends or listening to music on their IPOD or doing anything they can to avoid upsetting their little ones who, like them, cry and wine when something doesn’t go their way. Like a bus sitting waiting for someone to secure their child.

The Baby mama I’m speaking of rides the #4 out by Gresham. She is not even twenty and has obvious chosen a career in the reproductive vocation twice. Not that it is a crime at all to be in that career path, however to be involved in the reproductive arts at an age when you lack the maturity to realize it’s not about you! It’s not about how you feel or how you’re put out, it’s about the safety of your kids. That is simply dangerous.

 How is safety not job one of any parent? if you are still so young that you cannot figure that out then your kids are nothing more then glorified toys to you and maybe you have chosen the wrong career path.

Now comes the kicker.

The repeated neglect of a Childs safety is not all that uncommon.

Really you would be shocked how many times I have see toddlers wondering around the bus unattended and worse yet touching the floor of the bus… (for you baby mama’s that’s Nas to the t on that one.) Or children in strollers just out in the open with no one even holding on. You would be aghast at the parents who leave their toddler unattended at a bus stop as I’m pulling up so they can run and get their bags from the shelter. That’s right 15-ton bus, its dark, wet and your kid is walking right at me. No possibility of risk there. After a while It hardly strikes an emotional chord. Neglect is way to common, I see it every day.

Ok back to my problem child, when I tell her  “you are the living seatbelt of your child.” Sooner or latter she realizes I’m not moving. So to punish me she moves from neglect to abuse. This is something I find very hard to absorb. Neglect I can out wait abuse…

The first time I was shocked, surprised and maybe a bit befuddled as to what I saw. She yanked the child out of her stroller by one arm and rammed her into her lap so hard the child started crying. She then informed me that I “Made her child cry” the child cried for 40 blocks as it’s beloved mother jerked the her around like a doll.

Next time it was repeated with a two-arm grip on kid and for extra measure she pinched the kids’ leg to make the child cry. I told her I wouldn’t allow that and shockingly three people, I like to call them bus lawyers, came to her aid until I told them what had happened. She got off my bus and I was powerless to do any more. By the way bus lawers until you have all the facts “stay out of it!”

This evening I picked her up again. This time she greeted me with “Oh my least favorite bus driver” Now given what I hear as a bus driver that is almost a proposal of marriage. it took me a moment to recognize who she was. I told her the same thing I tell anyone with a child.

 I look back, same old story and end up having to wait until she gives in. Then as soon as I start rolling guess where the child goes? Right back into the stroller! Child = not secured so Dan = stop rolling.  Again yank the kid, crying, and my fault. I stopped the bus and told her you can call me any name in the book but two things will never be associated with my name and that neglect of a childs safety and allowing a child to be abused. Her excuse that she was only going to the next stop. Oh so yanking your kids around and making them cry is ok for a short hop. WRONG!

 The second second I turn around child went back in stroller I pulled over and opened the door. She volunteered to get out and that is good thing in my book.

Here is the deal.. I’m going to run into her again. I’m going to be right up front with her. If she doesn’t secure her kids she cannot get on my bus. I can’t baby-sit her in my mirror, I have to able to trust her. If I see she is doing something unsafe I’m pulling over and she is getting off the first time. No more warnings. If she abuses her kids I’m calling the cops they can look at the bus video and arrest her child-abusing ass. If she continues to abuse her kids I’m going to get in her face the way no one probably ever has.

And that is how I will end up on the cover of the Oregonian and unemployed.

 I will not allow the neglect of safety for children, I will not allow abuse of children by anyone. I will do everything in my power to protect children at all times. Your feelings, your well being, your sense of pride has all the value to me of a day old transfer. People who neglect the safety of their children, people who abuse their kids are the lowest order of life on earth and should not be surprised when a bus driver gives them the slaptism they usually give their kids.

That’s the kind of world I want to live in. That the world I do live in.

Watch out little Baby mama your day is growing close and I’m saving money for unemployment just in case. I would rather get fired and end up in court and thrown in jail then watch this happen again.

Update on Friday, January 15, 2010 at 7:01AM by [Dan Christensen]

Ok yesterday after I wrote this I was so pissed off. I had not slept well and I just could not let go. After a long walk, dozens of texts, ten phone calls, twenty emails and more walking. I ended up at work. My run last night was a new one and it was very relaxing. 

I'm still a bus driver. 

I will be a bus driver

and now I have tools to fight the demon baby mama

 

YES!

 

Thank you all for your kind words and help