Another case of the Tail trying to Wag the Dog

Well it seems a day doesn't go by that I don't see another government agency being abused by their employees. See:

http://www.abc-7.com/articles/readnews.asp?articleid=2594&z=2&p=

It looks like the school district here is trying to do the right thing, but instead of looking at safety for their own driver members and safety for children (which in my naive' "outside looking in" perspective I thought was the overriding principle in pupil transportation), the driver's union is on the warpath, stirring up the TV stations and complaining about the "invasion of driver's privacy". Excuse me? You want to put 40 or 50 children on a bus and drive off at your own discretion and have privacy?

Didn't Florida just tragically lose a 9 year-old girl to a sexual predator? And a proven method to make children and drivers safer, to reward good drivers and to eliminate the few bad apples among the nations dedicated bus drivers is wrong because it interferes with bus driver's privacy ?

There are a lot of people in this country who enjoy working conditions that were improved by the work and sacrifice of unions, and while enjoying the benefits, denigrate the unions who fought indirectly for them. But when I see a case like this, I understand that knee-jerk anti-union sentiment fully.

Just 10 days ago a former school bus driver was convicted and sent to jail for admittedly having sex with a 14 year old girl he met while transporting her and also had non-sexual inappropriate relationships with other young girls he met while driving.

http://www.abqjournal.com/north/319080north_news03-09-05.htm

Now remember, I'm not saying any but a truly tiny percentage of bus drivers would be in this category of sleazy criminals, but as this bus driver goes off to his well-deserved prison sentence, the victim is filing her civil suit ... and you know who one of the defendants is, of course, the school district who employed the errant driver.

Wonder what they would pay now if they had thought to have a record, admissible in court, of when and where this guy was every minute he had control of their bus and authority over their students. Sorry for the negative tone today, hats are off to the Lee County School District and I promise to scare up some good news for tomorrow's entry, I do, I really do.

Dave
http://www.satviz.com/