Charlie Rukstela

My first time time a review, but years of watching daily. As a bus company owner I want to remind everyone after watching the episode on the truckers shortage. Don’t forget that the bus industry faces much or more of the same hurdles they do. I not only need school bus but motor coach drivers. We also face long background checks that can take between 6-16 weeks, because they need to be certified by the state and federal governments. Also insurance companies don’t want drivers under the age of 25 now, until when I stated driving over thirty years ago. School bus drivers could be 18 and coach drivers leaving the state had to be 21. Now with the electronic logs and stricter physical requirements, all good ideas have reduced the pool. Beside the narrowing of the age requirements and lengthy background checks, people don’t want to wait that long to be hired. So all these requirements meant to weed out the bad apples are also making the potentially good drivers look elsewhere for a job, because of the lengthy process even before the training starts. Let’s not forget that now we are seeing in the last year or two that insurance companies are requiring charter companies only hire experienced drivers. With a driver shortage and a lack schools teaching bus driving it hard to get drivers approved by the insurance industry. Most motor coach companies are small and medium size companies or school bus companies have to do there own training then be taken to the state agency for licensing that also may have a back log due to budgeting issues. Also let’s not forget bus drivers can not have some person legal histories the the trucking industry allows.