I've been informed that the DOE is doubling down on their fucked up Via phone system. A pilot program is scheduled to begin Dec. 8  whereby several runs in each borough will be chosen to participate, including 3 yet undisclosed runs at Pioneer Staten Island, that will test students swiping their I.D. cards on the Via scanner when boarding and leaving the bus. 

The "I.D." cards were described to me as "A QR code on a piece of paper." I'm not sure if that ws to be taken literally but one thing is certain: Via will soon be an even bigger fiasco than it already is. I pity the drivers of the  runs that are selected.

I heard the 3 Pioneer routes will be with drivers of 30 years or more Seniority.
Specifically any driver that has a tenure date in the month of September. LMAO

Quote from: PROUD MEMBER on November 15, 2025, 05:00:59 PMI heard the 3 Pioneer routes will be with drivers of 30 years or more Seniority.
Specifically any driver that has a tenure date in the month of September. LMAO

Yes ... but they must be under the age of 70 because they won't be able to handle it!!     

I think it was 3 summmers ago before anyone even used VIA, they wanted to test it out but we never did that summer BUT they did say in time there was going to be part where students would be swiping their ID on the black box in the bus AND if they didn't have their ID on them, lost their ID, or wasn't working it would be up to the driver to manually put the student on the bus. Drivers then brought up how it shouldn't be up to the driver because who is then watching the stop signs as students cross to not get hit by cars running the stop signs as we are entering in students information to be on the bus in VIA as well as other valid points to the response of the person running the session said "cars run stop signs out here?" They don't even have a clue as to what goes on and it's clearly a safety issue but I guess they don't care if they are planning to run a test session on this because it was explained then that students would have to swipe their IDs getting on and off at their stops. Just another thing to add to our list of things of driving as a school bus driver.

Just say your route has 30 students on it.
Then let's say just 5 of them get on without their IDs and you have to manually do it. Besides the safety issues, what about the time it takes to do it. And they're already complaining that buses are getting to the schools late. Oh, and I forgot what about all the students that get on the bus that don't speak English and can't even explain to you what their name is!

So how does a driver even know the student's ID? Are we going to be given a list of names and ID numbers? And the flashing reds are on all this time? Don't they realize that what might work in rural Buttfuck, Iowa doesn't work in NYC

And what if a kid gets off the bus without swiping ... and you don't know the name or ID number?

So now they are gonna want us to enforce swiping cards to get on and off the bus? Might as well work for the mta at this point smh

Quote from: Safety First on November 16, 2025, 04:27:47 AMSo now they are gonna want us to enforce swiping cards to get on and off the bus? Might as well work for the mta at this point smh

Not even. I don't think city bus drivers even give a shit if somebody doesn't pay. They're not getting involved with enforcement and I don't blame them.

i for one will be keeping an eye on the children getting on and off the bus and the street traffic around my bus when loading and unloading children I will not be concerned with scanning in or out. I will be damned if I will be fined or fired for this infraction. I will not jeopardize the safety of the children getting on my bus because of their stupidity and ignorance any one of us will have our day in court and win with no issues. PS how come 19A isn't concerned about the safety issue

Quote from: faceit on November 16, 2025, 07:29:30 PM...any one of us will have our day in court and win with no issues. PS how come 19A isn't concerned about the safety issue

I'm not sure about that. We have to execute their stupid dumb-ass shit and then take the blame and suffer the consequences when it blows up! Typical.

Until they stop cars from passing my reds I won't take my eyes off the road.. everyone should do the same

The logic of this makes no sense. If they want to see if their child is on the bus simply the GPS on the VIA system is 100 percent enough to see where the bus and where their child is. And to be honest how many parents even use the GPS VIA system, do they think that every parent will check the the system to see if their child scanned on the bus. Majority of the parents who want to know where their child is have air tags for their child. The headache this will cause especially when students lose their ID cards to scan. Wasn't this a bus driving job? Now we gotta be phone techs while driving the bus

I heard that today when one of us walked into the drivers room she was informed that she was one of the 3 "lucky" drivers whose runs were randomly selected by OPT to participate in this trial fiasco and that all 3 would have to go to Queens in the near future for training. (Company will provide transportation.)

All I can say is, "Good Luck."

NYS has a no touch law for electronic devices while operating a vehicle. They can try to scan IDs all they want. We can't touch the device. How will that work. Risk losing your CDL for the DOE
Law enacted June 5,2025