Ethical Question

[angelatc]

Just for fun. This really happened here though...

You're a school bus driver. (Say middle school) You have dropped all but 4 kids off. A woman runs up, hysterically screaming and crying and begging you to help her by letting her on the bus and driving away. She claims that her husband is going to kill her.

Do you let her on the bus?

[SAVEamerica]

Of course, why wouldn't you?

[AlexAmore]

That's a toughy...:confused:

[mdh]

I would stop the bus and allow her to stay nearby while I contact emergency services. You don't let her onto the bus though, that's endangering the students for whom you're responsible. I think those 4 sets of students/parents would forgive you for a 15-20 minute delay in this case.

[angelatc]

My answer was :Of course you let her on the bus!

My husband disagreed, and said "you have to protect the children!"

That particular phrase always gets my hackles up, so I'm not changing my stance, even though I do understand it, because I'm a Mom.

I think to turn away another human in a desperate hour because something bad might happen is misguided.




What really happened:

The bus driver let the woman on the bus and drove her to safety. The husband was arrested with a gun, rope and duct tape in his possession.

The bus driver lost her job.

[TheDuke]

I would kill her myself

[mdh]

See, my solution probably wouldn't get the bus driver fired and would certainly protect the safety of everyone involved. Since I'd guess that all bus drivers have either cellphones or radios to the dispatcher, it wouldn't have been problematic to get emergency services on the wire.

[angelatc]

Your solution might have put the children in the middle of a gun battle, if the husband was chasing her and was right around the corner. My soluton got her away from her husband.

Then again, my solution might have also allowed a psychotic, delusional crazy lady on a school bus.