No doubt plenty would wonder how someone with these occupational skills would end up behind the wheel of a school bus?

I began this profession part-time on a whim between jobs and have remained now nearly two decades.

Interesting to me was the discovery it is not the stress of, ''dealing with "certain students," as some experts claim that results in so many school bus drivers leaving this profession, but the stress of ''dealing with certain students'' and with certain adults - day-in and day-out and with no relief in sight.

By my second year driving school bus I was pretty much a well trained bus driver, following state mandated training and my employer's directions, ignoring some of the contradictions that perhaps every school bus driver in this country may face on occasion.

Then something happened that changed my lackadaisical approach to driving school bus and toward school bus safety itself.

A middle school age child on the bus distracted me, but for a brief moment, while at a bus stop where only one very young child would depart and cross the road.

After dealing with the distractive child my focus returned to the task at hand. I saw that the child had already crossed the road and was now standing by her dad. She must have ran across the road. I'd planed to speak with her about that unsafe student practice the next day.

As the bus proceeded, noticed a piece of paper blow in front of my bus, then a small hand come into view chasing that piece of paper. I slammed the brakes to avoid striking the little girl with the bus.

What I had not seen earlier was a similar looking child come out of the house and go to her dad.

The wind, not me, probably saved that child from injury or death. The wind was my only helper at that bus stop that day.

The event had caused an excessive adrenaline release. I could not control the my shaking body, had to pull off and stop to let the adrenaline complete its task. My anger while stopped frightened some of the kids and that seemed to concern a few parents, the school and my boss.

''Death is patient and prepares the way where adults fail to work together in the noble effort to help keep kids safe.'' --Source: From the booklet, "Death at the school bus stop - What parents and school staff must know to help keep kids safe," by James Kraemer.

My response, "Where was my helper?! Where was my support?! Only the wind?!!!" - and walked off refusing further discussion.

I'd been distracted by an unruly child that day and for the better part of that school year on occasion. The resulting unnecessary bus driver distraction was too dangerous to ignore.

But that child was not alone in the acting out of learned misbehavior. Unnecessary student distractions was common on that school bus route - and there was little help from the school to resolve numerous students malbehaviors on the buses.

I'd eventually explained my anger was not directed toward a specific student, was mostly directed toward myself, and that my disappointment toward myself had escaped my silence.

Agreement eventually prevailed that the wind must not be my only helper keeping kids safe. Not nature's, and not anyone's wind.

After that event I began living the reality that, "I am the bus driver and my job is to help keep kids safe."

An unruly or defiant child, refusing to follow directions on this bus, now had more than the wind to contend with. Same for an interfering school or parent.

Every professional school bus driver's life-saving duties includes enforcing known safe practices. But so many school bus drivers too often seem to rely on a variety of winds to be their helpers.

I would suggest that our nation's 450,000 or so school bus drivers see all sorts of events happening at bus stops, and not as much as a child's finger injured.

How many are foolish enough to allow nature's wind, a parent's wind, a school's or management's winds, or political winds, all these sometimes dysfunctional winds left in charge of children's safety on the bus and at the bus stop? The dysfuntional teach kids that the adults invoved will eventually cave in.

According to Jim Fay, one of America's top educational consultants, and Dr. Foster Cline, an established child and adult psychiatrist, parents who try to ensure their children's success often raise unsuccessful kids. "Responsibility is like anything else - it has to be learned through practice. Kids learn the best lessons when they're given a task and allowed to make their own choices - and to fail - while the cost of failure is still small."

Escape from a life-altering injury or death are not reasons to ignore what happened, make excuses and flow with the prevailing winds at hand. They are red flags - forgiving warnings - offering reason enough to act, to enforce, and to restore safe practices.

Failure to, Follow the bus driver's directions and practice the skill of courtesy, is a major violation on any school bus, worthy of immediate removal from the bus and often regardless of what the student's other mis-activity was.

For me, the wind helped once, a friend indeed that day.

No serious injuries or deaths, no crashes, no traffic tickets while driving school bus all these years.

I'm a lucky fellow I would suppose. By the grace of God's intervention may fit here as well. Yet, I also believe that appreciating life, acquiring good training on how to be aware, alert and how to intervene also helped.

Events have happened over the years, especially at bus stops, high risk events that I firmly believe enforced student safe practices and good information to parents helped save a precious life here and there.

Yet, an uncertainty remains:

Who can count and name the precious lives that were saved because a school bus driver, a helpful parent of school staff member, or a properly trained child followed safe practices expectations?

I believe that it is simply not possible to accurately count and name these that death passed over. We can only count and name the dead. And we can, when choosing to do so, appreciate that enforcing known safe practices most likely saves precious lives.

I've been in the process of writing an in-depth book for over a decade concerning the school bus industry in our great nation. Don't really know if it will ever be completed. All that data, studies and research - and a flood of daily projects keeping me busy and the book in limbo. Regardless, my efforts to contribute toward children's safety on our nation's school buses is not in vain. Much of my studies and research are on a school bus safety CD - a rather unusual work that includes many of the tools that professional providers and their school bus drivers use to help insure: