When to Stop for a School Bus...

I'm a school bus driver.. 

I haven't happen to me yet, but there are some assclowns who don't understand that when we have our stop sign out and the lights flashing that means traffic STOPS...

That said, I've had people stop when I have my hazard lights going.. I've had people stop when I've been pulled over to the side of the road with my turn signal on.. I've had people in the oncoming lane slam on their brakes when I have my inner flashing lights going, then flip me off when I coast past them... 

So I think it's time to do a little educating... 

Now first a little jargon... 

The lights on the top portion of the bus are called Alternating Lights. We have two sets for the most part now.. An inner set and an outer set..

I know here in Ontario, both sets are red.. They are working on getting them to an Amber colour. 

When the Inner Alternating lights start going, cars behind the bus cannot pass... Oncoming cars should be prepared to stop.. Generally slowing down works. 

At the same time... If you're an oncoming car, try to judge the speed of the bus.. If it looks like the driver is still going 30 KM, it means they're not quite to the stop yet... 

This... This means stop... The only time it's not a stop is on a split highway with a median.. 

In Ontario, passing a school bus when the outer lights are flashing is a maximum of $2000 and 6 demerit points. 

Other places have different fines.. The most I've seen is Nova Scotia where the max is $5000 and 8 points. 

So... That's the alternating lights...

Next, we have the four way flashing lights, also known as Hazard Lights..

Now.. These are the same type of lights on your car that you use when you're stopped on the side of the road if you have a flat tire, or whatever else..

On a school bus, they serve many of the same purposes. If we're in a situation where we need to pull off to the side of the road, we turn on those lights and go about what we need to do. Those lights means Proceed With Caution.. Just like in your vehicle.. 

The only time they're used for anything else is if we're picking up groups on a charter. 

It is illegal for us to use our alternating lights for anything but picking up and dropping children off during our school runs. So we turn on the hazard lights to let you know to proceed with caution. 

I can't even exaggerate the number of people I've had stop and stare at me while pulled over to the side of the road with my hazard lights going because they thought I was stopping them. 

This is another image I found that explains it as easily as I just did.. 

So yeah.. This has been bothering me for a while.. Tonight I decided to finally write something out about it.. 

The All Star Game Controversy

It's been a week now since the Anthem Controversy at the MLB All Star Game. In that week we've had a large amount of venom directed at the Tenors, massive apologies from the Tenors, and then nothing.

For those who are unaware of what happened, The group The Tenors, formerly the Canadian Tenors, sang O Canada at the Baseball All Star game in San Diego.

At one point, one member had a solo for a single line: "With glowing hearts we see thee rise, The True North Strong and Free"
He changed the line to "We're all Brothers and Sisters, All Lives Matter to the Great" while holding up a handmade sign saying "All Lives Matter" on one side and "United We Stand" on the other.

Since then, the "Lone Wolf" member has been suspended indefinitely from the group, and has had concerts cancelled as long as he was a part of the lineup.

Well, I was thinking about what was actually said.

"All Lives Matter to the Great"

This may be true.. The problem is, however, "The Great" isn't the one we have to worry about. The ones that "All Lives" should matter to are the masses. Of course, since the beginning of time, we've proven time and again that lives of those different from us do not matter to us.

You have wars from religion, segregation due to skin colour, subservience due to skin colour, political wars, genocides, and more. We've proven time and again that the slightest difference is enough to discriminate against.



By no means am I saying that the Black Lives Matter Movement or any other movement have no relevance. What I am saying is they fall into the same trap but feel entitled to it because they were the Oppressed class before.

Can years of history be changed/mended? I don't believe so. There will always be distrust between groups, skin pigmentations, etc. We are all Homo Sapien. Segregating and valuation of one group's lives over another's needs to stop. But it won't.

All we can do is try to treat each other with respect and dignity. Too many people have forgotten that.

This week..

I decided to resurrect this blog for this post..

I am completely disgusted by some of what's gone on in the world the last 7 days.

First the attacks in Paris and the attack in Beirut. Now, Beirut has been terrorized for a while. Paris is another matter. I feel bad for everyone in both places.

But then there was what can best be described as a cowardly reaction to the attack in Paris. And this reaction happened right here in Peterborough Ontario.

Peterborough has the area's only mosque in the Kawartha Muslim Religious Association. On Saturday night, some cowardly assclowns decided to set the place on fire. The only nice thing I can say is they waited till the place was empty.

I can't believe something like this would happen here. Police are treating it as a hate crime.

I hope the Muslim population in the area don't believe the actions of a few represent everyone. I don't believe the terrorist groups represent all Muslims. I liken the terror groups to the other religious extremist groups that exist in every religion.

The nice thing about this story though is other churches in Peterborough have offered space for the displaced group until repairs could be made. A crowdfunding campaign has already raised the money required to make the repairs. I like how the city has banded together to help the displaced mosque.

I hope this was an isolated thing by some misguided assclown. I also hope to never hear of this happening again.

Some Normal Stuff..

Well, something a little different today. I've found I'm cynical. That may get in the way of actually expressing my gratitude for my friends and family. It also makes me very critical of people. So I just want to get something out there..

In general, I think people are good. They have good in them. The good may be incredibly small, but it's still there.. Years of working in retail has clouded that truth. Through my time working in retail I've come across so many people that you wonder how they made it out the door in the morning. Along the way I've let that experience rule my thought on people. I really have two options: Keep that mindset, or find out why I think that way and work on changing it. The best thing for me to do would be work on it.

Now, the other thing starts as bit of a rant, but there's a point to it.. I'm frustrated by the standard of beauty forced on the population by the media. If you're not a twig you're not pretty or handsome. I don't believe that for a second. Ray Stevens was able to put it best with the song "Everything is Beautiful." Basically, everyone is beautiful in their own way. Yes, there are people who are outwardly beautiful. There are many who are inwardly beautiful. There are even some who are both. Of course, the thing is a lot of people take the outside at face value, forgetting that the person inside could be stunning.

I'm not completely immune to judging the outward appearance. I try not to. It does happen. However, I firmly believe that everyone is beautiful in some way.

Halloween and the Monster du Jour

It's been a while since I've had time and energy to sit down and write something on here. Last night I had many things bouncing around the ol' noggin. One of them I'd like to write about today..

Halloween...

I'm Canadian. I went trick-or-treating when I was a child. I ended up quitting around the middle of elementary school. As I've gotten older, however, I'm finding myself more and more apathetic? about Halloween. I mean this weekend I was working at 7-Eleven (Yay new job!!) and there were people coming in from costume parties. People anywhere from high school age to people in their 40s. I don't get it. I guess there's the idea of being somoene other than yourself for a night. Then again, you can get the same experience through games like WoW.

Maybe it's my inability to deal with people. Even dressed up as something or someone else I still don't want to be around people very often. The fantasy element doesn't really go for me either.. I mean you can dress up as a zombie, a fireman, Spiderman, or a bag of leaves, it doesn't really change the concept.

The other thing about Halloween that's been bothersome for me the last few years is the "It" monster. A couple years ago it was vampires. Unfortunately, it was vampires who doubled as disco balls, but that's another story. This year, it seems to be Zombies. There are video games where you shoot zombies.. There are video games where you can be the zombies. There are shows about zombies.. I feel there's a small zombie overload.

Again, it may be the cynic in me, or maybe it's just the way I am, but Zombies do walk amongst us now. They're the ones staring at their cellphones texting away while standing beside the person they're texting.. They're the ones glued to the tv screen or the computer screen drooling at whatever they're looking at. They're the ones drunk out of their minds walking into everyone and everything. They're the ones stoned out of their mind, unable to function. Zombies are amongst us already. Why become a different type of Zombie?? And really, what's the next monster-du-jour? Will it be the Wolfman? Bring back all the bad werewolf movies? Or will it be mummies? Really then all people need to do is wrap themselves up and act like Zombies..

I don't know. It's been bothering me for a while. I finally decided to put it in writing today. Agree with me or not, it's just my opinion... I could be wrong..

Somehow it only surprises the people who report these things....

Today is the start of the wonderful joy of another Dalton McGuinty term. I'm not overly happy about that. I didn't vote for him or his party. I would have thought everything we've endured as a result of the last eight years of Daddy Dalton would have woken people up, but oh well.

Then again, I looked at the map for the breakdown by riding. Northern Ontario, with the exception of two ridings, is NDP. he two ridings that voted different both were Liberal. Central and Southern Ontario were predominately Conservative, except for a couple pockets of Liberal and NDP. And here's the fun part.. Toronto... Pretty well all of the ridings in Toronto are Liberal. So that makes me wonder. It makes me wonder what makes the viewpoint on the same matters so different based on region? Then... I looked at the numbers for voter turnout..

49.2% Less than half of the eligible voters actually got up and exercised their Democratic Right to Bitch. Less than half of Ontarians bothered to make their voice heard. So already we know it's a minority since we have 50.8% of the people sitting on their asses doing nothing yesterday.

CBC has an article online right now asking why there was such a low turnout. Everything from inconvenience to "they don't hear us" to too many elections this year were brought out as excuses. One thing that they were encouraged about though was the advance polls were used more often than last election.

So what can be done to change voter apathy? The same CBC article talks about bringing in a law where people can complain to someone about the politicians lying... (What's a politician who doesn't lie? Unemployed!!) Another thing mentioned was changing the style to proportional representation. (Wasn't that brought up and voted down in a referendum already??) So what's my solution? Get rid of the Three Stooges we have now, each of them with about as much charisma as a bucket of sand, and replace them with people who can speak, who know what they're talking about and most of all... Will Listen to the people.. Drop the lying weasels we've had rotating for ages and get someone new in.

We have voter apathy simply because Canadian Politics is like a PBS pledge drive... The same exact thing, but in a different voice..

September 11th

Well, the views today may not be overly popular..

Today's the 10th anniversary of the planes flying into the World Trade Centre. An event likened to the bombing of Pearl Harbour in historical importance.. And how is this date marked??

A&E has non-stop documentaries on the collapse.. They even ran a play-by-play this morning. Sporting events today will have more flag-waving than usual, especially with the start of the NFL season. I'm surprised MLB hasn't tried to get the Yankees wrapped in the flag tonight. At the very least I won't be surprised if they're wearing the Fire/Police hats they wore the first few games back after the original event.

But here's the problem I have with the memorials and everything else. They're being used more for the purpose of flag-waving and patriotism than for actual remembrance. It's being used for monetary gain than for honouring the people who lose their lives and those who started picking up the pieces. (granted, a lot of the documentaries on A&E are honouring the people who were at the site. Police, Fire, Medics, etc..)

I'm just saying that the date should be honoured with a moment of silence rather than flag-waving and chanting. (sports) Then again, maybe it's the society we live in now.. I can't imagine Pearl Harbour being exploited the same way.