In the city not so much of a big deal if they start but on the highway if a bus broke down you could have a very serious issue very quickly. School is very importaint but its not worth risking lives to get there.

Why are we still using diesel buses when i see half of them hauling 5 or 6 kids? My child rides the bus and i have yet to see more than 8 kids on it. it is a 48 passenger bus. Would we not be better off with large vans for some of these routes?

it is about safety. I am a high school teacher at a rural high school and if the tempature is below -35c the bus drivers make a decision as to whether or not to run. This, at least in my case, is due to the danger of a break down. If the bus was to break down on a grid road at 7am in -35c (-45c windchill) it wouldn't take long for a stalled bus situation turn dangerous quick. We did have an instance a couple years ago where a bus broke down and it was a scramble to get transportation to the kids so they didn't freeze. And in some of these rual places, kids are on the bus as long as an hour or more... so they're up and on the road early.... sometimes just safet to cancel.

The rural school bus my kids travel on was running this morning and the kids made it to school. Unfortunately the bus driver wasn't so lucky as the bus broke down on the way back home. Fortunately it happened when it did because it would be a long cold wait for a bus to come all the way from PA to take them to school. How happy would you be if your kids had a 1/2 hour wait at
-42? I know I wouldn't want the liability.

You idiot....I love to hear that they cancelled buses in this frigid weather, becuase I would rather know my children stayed home and didnt get stuck on a cold friggen bus in the middle of the country or highway...

They dont cancel buses cause they want to butt head...they do it to be SAFE and they THINK of the many YOUNG lives they are preventing from any harm!!!!

Give ur head a shake!!!!

dot.riquires a bus with 36 passengers or larger to be equipped with a 350 cid engine...for constant use a gasoline engine is not viable..since all busses are now equipped w/automatic transmissions it takes a lot more hp. to power them....on the old scale it used to be 2200/sqr/m. now schools base cancellations on a combo of the wind plus temp. @-40 everything is cancelled for student safety.....

think about it - in the days where everybody sues anybody - a bus breaks down on the highway and kids are cold frostbitten and possibly frozen, the bus driver would be the one sued for neglegence, regardless of the fact the parents put the kids on the bus. Mechanical things don't work so well in the cold and if the engine isn't running it would take the bus 5 minutes to start cooling off, if you're out in the country it will take longer than that for help to come, and let's face it half the kids aren't dressed for the weather anyay, better safe than sorry I say.

cuz we have lost our adaption to the cold .. we dont walk 5 miles to school anymore and we deont like to see our children freeze.. its a differnt time now from 40 years ago

i agree with everyone about the busses breaking down and the saftey of the kids. It was only 4 years ago i was taking a bus still, and the roads were so terrible we hit a drift that covered the entire road and were thrown into the ditch. The bus drivers have to make a decision on wether or not they want to put themselfs and the children on their busses in a position where they could get stuck or break down. If education is still that important to you, hopefully your car is plugged in and you can drive your kids to school when busses are canceled. remember, Busses are canceled, not school.

My mother remembers going to school by horse-pulled sleigh too. The part she remembers most vividly is being deathly afraid of the heater tipping over and setting the sleigh on fire.

The buses may not start on fire, but they sure as hell get stuck in ditches.

Spring is here.....let the buses run!