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Drivers hit the 'road-e-o' |
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Wednesday, 07 May 2008 |
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 Staff photo/Kay Louth
Sandy Bechtol checks her bus Tuesday in preparation for picking up passengers. All the bus drivers check their buses daily.
By KAY LOUTH
Staff Writer
ST. MARYS — Every morning hundreds of children climb on board that familiar big yellow bus for the trip to school and again in the afternoon for the trip home. The young passengers depend on the school bus driver to get them safely to their destinations.
Bus drivers are trained to handle the welfare of their young passengers, but that doesn’t mean that training can’t be fun and competitive.
On Saturday, St. Marys City School bus drivers joined 66 other bus drivers from across the region at Graham School in St. Paris for the School Bus Safety Road-e-o, an annual event designed to help bus drivers test their skills and knowledge.
Six St. Marys drivers attended the event. Four were competitors and two served as judges.
“We had a team of four drivers and they came in first in the team competition,” Transportation Coordinator Dan Grothause said.
Besides claiming first place in the team competition, several drivers placed in the event. Jim Reier took home second place, William Birt netted third place, Sandy Bechtol 13th place and Mike Lieurance placed 18th. Reier’s ranking earned him a spot in the state competition slated to be held later this month.
Grothause said the competition consisted of a written and driven test. The written part tested a driver’s knowledge of the rules and regulations associated with driving a school bus.
In the driving portion, driver’s had to show their mastery of backing, right-hand turns, student pickup and delivery, traversing a railroad crossing and diminishing clearance. Grothause said in the test for diminishing clearance, drivers had to navigate a course outlined with barricades that progressively get narrower throughout the course.
“It’s a pretty big undertaking,” Grothause said. “It’s an annual event we compete in just about every year.”
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Last Updated ( Monday, 12 May 2008 )
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