United States | News & Politics

And when looked at closer it's mostly negligences not mistakes.

tbf this also was no mistake

Reading between the lines in this one, I think she's being thrown under the bus for our societal guilt. The prosecution emphasized "six years of training," but that's so obviously bogus.. Medical doctors are only in school for four, so that's clearly not referring to a professional certification, but six years of (probably recycled) on-the-job training sessions by the bus company, which is what? Probably not much, because transportation is a huge, huge cost for school systems, and they go with the low bidders for contracts. It's an expensive business to run, so the contractors cut costs. How much did this woman earn? Not much I'll wager. The bus company didn't even provide her with a company phone, and didn't bother to install proper restraints in the bus itself.

So here's this low-paid, probably not highly-trained, young woman who loaded up a girl in a wheelchair with restraints she just had to trust because she's not allowed to touch them, because in six years of training, she hasn't been trained on them. Besides, the parents/siblings ought to know best, right? The bus doesn't have proper equipment, but what's she going to do, refuse to let the child on? It'd make a scene, embarrass the child, annoy the driver and the parents, probably leading to a complaint that could cost her job.

Besides, this was undoubtedly not the first time. In six years, she'd loaded up how many kids in wheelchairs onto buses with broken or inadequate equipment, and it's been fine. We all tend to think of our vehicles as a safety cocoon. Strap the kid in, and it's a temporarily solved problem. No more worrying about what they're up to for the duration of the trip, a mental reprieve. So, yeah, this woman made a mistake, but one that every driving parent I've ever met makes on the regular. And it's one of those psychological quirks of humans that we come down like a ton of manure on people who were unlucky enough to suffer consequences for dangerous mistakes we've all skated on. Related to the Just World Hypothesis, probably.

So this woman made a mistake, an understandable one if you put yourself in her shoes, and she's taking the fall for meager school funding, poorly regulated school transportation, and our collective guilt, too.

It’s one thing when something unavoidable happens like a kid darting out from behind a truck and not being able to stop in time. It’s another thing if someone is willfully not paying attention and careens into a crosswalk full of children. So I would both agree and disagree with your sentiment depending on the circumstances.

Regardless, if she was texting and driving and hit a pedestrian you bet their ass they would find her guilty of that. The circumstances may be different but the underlying cause is essentially the same thing.