I had a trainer ride with me on my afternoon bus route today. She is the most particular one and some other drivers don't want her to ride with them. It is ok, yesterday she was making grumpy faces and I yelled over to her when I was standing in a group of drivers, "We Love You O!"
When we got to the school she was telling me somethings about other drivers and was giving me clues as to what she expected. We talked about lots of things and she only had a couple of minor things to point out to me about my intersection alertness telling me I was looking left, right, left at some intersections and not others. She said I was just looking with my eyes and not moving my head back and forth. The other thing was I didn't turn off the fan at the first RR crossing and did at the second. The first one is a siding where you can see the tracks in both directions for hundreds of yards across a busy highway. The second is more complicated and the driver can only see about 50 yards in each direction. I know that I have seen a train at both.
As we drove she kept trying to distract me. She kept saying oh look at that and I would say, can't do that maybe there will be a better time to see it when I am not driving the bus. This person I really like and respect. She has been a school bus driver quite a while and has taken the test in California as well as Oregon. In California the Highway Patrol sends an officer along with you and that officer tries to distract the driver a lot. So, she is experienced and she is quite fair.
We had some good conversations. She told me about pulling some tendons in her ankle and how painful that was and how she couldn't work. She told me about her daughter who is in the Navy and is home on leave. When she told me about her daughter being in the service, I thought of how tough it is for women in the service and all the abuse many of them are subjected to. That is a whole other subject.
So a good day on that account.
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