You have to imagine the small departmental road 50 which crosses the locality of Entrecolles to understand the emotion which agitates the village of Billanges (300 inhabitants), in Haute-Vienne, and more broadly the rural world, since a school bus driver was dismissed for serious misconduct on November 26, without notice or severance pay.
The story, unveiled by The People of the Centersheds light on the difficult organization of school transport in rural areas.
Among other reasons for which Damien Tabard is accused: so-called judgments “savages”, which he allowed himself to do in front of the homes of some students, for the sake of safety and to relieve worried parents, in this isolated countryside area with broken homes. No question for this grandfather to let pupils who could be his grandchildren walk alone at the edge of a ditch without lighting, without markings, without sidewalks, on a busy thoroughfare made of bends without visibility.
stops “not wild, but common sense, safe, because humanly you can’t do otherwise. It’s hard to pass in the bus in front of a child or a mother with her stroller who is walking along a dangerous road. I always felt like I was doing my job.” explains Damien Tabard, 70 years old including seventeen of school bus tours, a job chosen at the time as a complement to his activity as a farmer, and thanks to his D license obtained in military service. Especially, he underlines, that he made no detours, “so it cost the company nothing, it didn’t lengthen the tour”. A flexibility vis-à-vis which his former boss – a company “family” – “closed his eyes, himself would have done it”understands Mr. Tabard.
Bus geolocation
On his way, he had taken the habit of stopping in front of the home of Chandani, 12, to save him from walking 650 meters on the side to the official stop. The schoolgirl’s mother, Christelle Nozière, had twice sent the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region – the authority responsible for school transport – a request to create a stopping point supported by the town hall of Billanges, recalling the passage of the bus in front of their home. she. More than the distance to be traveled – the minimum interdistance rules are 1 kilometer for the second degree –, Mme Nozière warned of the risk of being hit. “Not to mention the other risks for a young girl. » A repeated request, but refused, without the reasons having been explained to him.
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