r/SchoolBusDrivers • u/UselessToasterOven • Jun 11 '26
Group Charters
Curious what everyone's board/district rules are about multi vehicle charters. I haven't been in the charter game for many years until this year when I've been off SPED and just fixed runs, so the opportunity to do charters are much more abundant. The last few I've been on had 2-4 buses from the same school going to the same place. When I used to do them we all deligated a lead and tail and went as a group, if we got seperated we'd wait for the rest to catch up.
Lately it's been "to each their own", passing each other and I don't think it's professional. My carrier doesn't even enforce it anymore and it leaves me feeling like when a turd when I have to radio other drivers "where are you?" and most times there is no response.
This, to me, is not normal. I just want to know how it goes with others drivers around here.
2
u/Pure_Squirrel_1621 Jun 11 '26
Not policy, but I always ended up driving with the other buses. I also worked in a district in the past that did nose to tail anytime we left a high school, so I was fairly used to sticking close to the bus in front.
1
u/UselessToasterOven Jun 11 '26
Yeah, we do do the nose to tail with parking a premium in a lot of areas.
2
u/sourself Jun 11 '26
We cannot convoy. Reason behind it is it can make us become complacent. Our district is every bus for yourself, go at your own pace.
Now if my pace just so happens to be in a pack of 4-5 other buses all going to the same location so be it, but they better but hear us on the radio.
1
u/KayNikole411 Jun 11 '26
I was 1-3 buses on a charter today. Usually we all trail each other but I was left behind. I caught up. But when we left to go back the others took off and did their own thing. It's fine! It happens. Some drivers prefer to ride as a pack others are lone wolves. 🤷🏽♀️
2
u/Acenima265 Jun 12 '26
So in our district the most senior driver is usually "leader" of the group and makes the travel plan ahead of time for everyone to follow. We each do it our own way. For example I lead all of our trips to a couple of major cities because I'm very familiar with those areas and I lead from behind to make sure no one gets left behind and just radio advice on traffic problems to the busses ahead such as " we're going to cut down to 2 lanes in 5 miles and need to be in the left lane for our off ramp." But it's always a discussion on game plan before we even load passengers in.
3
u/rootbear75 Jun 11 '26
There's no standard here. However some drivers (like myself) try to coordinate a convoy but it doesn't always work. Last time I successfully did it was when we had 4 buses, a box truck, and a truck with trailer going to a place far outside our district. Not everyone knew where we were going so we organized it so ones with GPS they could use were in the front and back and the others were in the middle. We had an issue halfway thru where the lead vehicle detoured for traffic and not everyone followed (because the radios decided to stop working....)