Setting up a sub for success or failure

Sub driving is one of the most difficult aspects of driving a school bus. And to top it off the drivers that are all too often asked to perform this task are the least senior and therefore the least experienced drivers. But you have a great deal of control of how successful or unsuccessful a sub driver may be on your route. You can either set up a sub driver to succeed or to fail. Too many times they are set up to fail. For example if you have fallen into the habit of sitting in front of a student’s house for them to appear, you are setting up a sub to fail because a sub driver relies on students visibility to trigger a stop. We all sometimes fall into the trap of forgoing protocol as a favor to certain students. Subs will not know about those exceptions and problems will ensue. Deviations from the established route or from generally accepted driving practices not only are detrimental to the general morale of the bus population, they set up a sub for failure.