Region’s school bus drivers train, compete for safety

Posted 9:00PM on Monday, March 2, 2020

CLARKESVILLE – School bus drivers from six Northeast Georgia counties gathered in Clarkesville Saturday to compete to be the safest on the road.

The event was hosted by the Habersham County School System and Transportation Coordinator Stephanie Walker explained more about the event.

“We are hosting a regional school bus safety competition, also known as a school bus rodeo,” Walker said. “We have six counties represented here from the Northeast Area district, or our Pioneer RESA district, and we are doing what is the best of the best of our school bus drivers competing to claim No. 1, but also to go to the state safety competition.”

About 40 drivers from Dawson, Habersham, Hall, Rabun, Stephens and White competed in compensation skills such as diminishing clearance to help judge distances, parallel parking, offset alley, a serpentine course, and simpler skills such as stopping at the proper location during a student pickup, at an intersection and at a railroad.

Habersham County Pupil Transportation Director Tim Dockery began competing in school bus rodeos in 1984 and briefed competing drivers on the rules before Saturday’s event.

Explaining the diminishing clearance event, Dockery said, “This first set of standards you’re going through is the bus width plus 10 inches and it goes down two inches each time until you get to the other end and it’s bus plus two inches. You’ll have one inch of clearance on each side.”

He said the event brings back good memories for him.

Walker, Dockery and others in the Habersham County system have been planning the event for almost a year.

“It’s been probably more than eight months that we’ve been planning this, trying to get this ready to roll out,” Walker said. “We’re real excited today – real cold, but we’re real excited.”

Winners of Saturday’s rodeo are as follows:

Dawson County