A mother has revealed her two daughters are too “traumatised” to catch their school bus anymore after a busload of children – some as young as five – were kicked off and left stranded some 10km from their final stop.
Gemma Pfingst said she got a call about 3.50pm on July 14 from her daughter Emily, telling her she and her sister had been ordered off the bus in the middle of its Brisbane route.
About 18 students from Brisbane-based state schools – including Woodhill State School where Ms Pfingst’s children attend – were on-board at the time the bus driver kicked them off.
Upon finding her two daughters, Ms Pfingst said she found other children wandering the streets.
One was just five.
“They nearly got hit by a car, it was pretty scary,” she told Today on Friday.
“She (Emily) only told us where they were because of a dog we had rescued recently, so we knew where she was.”
It’s understood the driver became irate at children allegedly misbehaving during the route, pulling over and leaving the kids stranded.
A Translink spokeswoman said they requested their delivery partner, Bus Queensland, to investigate the incident after receiving complaints from parents.
“Bus Queensland has taken immediate disciplinary action against the driver, while the incident and the events leading up to it are being reviewed,” the spokeswoman said.
“The driver is no longer employed with Bus Queensland.
“Translink apologises for the distress caused by this incident and it does not meet our expectations of delivery partners.”
An outraged Ms Pfingst said her daughters were left “endangered” in a location far from the bus’s final stop.
“They do not want to catch the school bus anymore, which has made work really difficult for us because we all work rurally,” she said.
“So now we have to rearrange everything to get them to school. They were pretty traumatised by it, I’m not going to lie.
“I mean, look, we can understand the pressures of a bus driver with kids who might be unruly, but to take that kind of action with kids that young?”
Ms Pfingst slammed the disciplinary procedure against the bus driver as not being good enough.
“That’s not going to keep our children safe on the roads,” she said.
“We put our faith in these bus drivers to get our children to and from school safely.
“They’ve shattered that.
“I can’t trust my children will be picked up from school and dropped off safely at home anymore.”