There may be signs on city school buses that say they have been checked for sleeping children, but it doesn't mean drivers do!
Seven-year-old Isaiah Morris was left alone on the bus after falling asleep. He got on his bus to PS 279 in Brooklyn around 7:30AM, and woke up at 9AM when the bus was parked in Bensonhurst. Morris's mother Shirley said, "He woke up and he opened the door himself and got out into the street. He walked up and down the street."
Little Isaiah stopped a stranger for help, and Arthur Mahana drove him to a police stationhouse. Shirley Morris called Mahana the "right person" to find her son, thankful that a pervert didn't pick him up. The bus driver, Daniel Bruno, was arrested for child endangerment and suspended from his job; the bus matron was also suspended but not charged.
City school buses have taken a beating in the past few weeks, but mostly over the Department of Education's decision to suddenly change bus routes (rather nonsensically) during the mid-year. A 4-year-old was the first school kid to be left on a bus during the 2006-2007 school year (her driver said, "I check [the bus] everyday. Every time except for today."). And two years ago, we wondered if the satellite systems installed on school buses would have heat sensors, to make sure no kids were left behind.
Photograph of school bus by Triborough on Fickr
