Who's driving your kids to school?

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By KBCI Staff

Summary

For many local bus drivers, distracted drivers on the road are what worries them the most.

Story Created: Feb 8, 2010 at 11:30 AM MDT

Story Updated: Feb 8, 2010 at 11:35 AM MDT

Who's driving your kids to school?
BOISE - Kim Conkwright drives four bus routes every morning through Nampa.

The daycare provider-turned bus driver calls her students precious cargo.

But, the 18 to 61 riders per route aren't Conkwright's biggest worry. It's the other drivers on the road.

"We've had a few times where people have run our stop arms. "That is so dangerous for our children."

Every morning, she carefully navigates the 38-foot yellow beast.

"One might have a little bit different of a tail swing, or one may need a tighter turn," she says.

Long before Conkwright got behind the wheel for the Brown Bus Company, she endured a battery of tests, which included applications, interviews, classroom and bus training, a background and DMV check, FBI fingerprinting and pre-employment and random drug screenings.

"That's why we do all the screening," said Brent Carpenter of Brown Bus. "(We want to see) what's in their past, possibly that that would prevent them from doing what they need to do."

And what they do is not easy. Not everyone passes.

But it's the training that Conkwright says helps her on all of routes. Because, in most cases, the biggest threat to your child is likely not the person behind the school bus wheel but rather the distracted river next to them.

"(You see drivers) with a cell phone in one hand, (holding food in the other) while your elbow is up driving the steering wheel - that's ridiculous," she says.

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Watch KBOI 2News anchor Natalie Hurst take her stab at driving a school bus:

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