Everyone knows busses aren't safe in Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Tim_McLean

I've never heard bad things about buses in Canada but a few people have said that buses in the US are really bad and to do anything you can to avoid travelling on them.

I don't think we've had anyone beheaded on a bus here. Something to aspire to!

I took the bus at 14 to go skateboarding in the late 90s. My parents were also way overprotective compared to other parents at the time. I did stay in pretty good areas though, and they loaned me a cell phone to keep in contact with them.

Grunching: yay!

When I did Uber I transported middle school age kids from A to B a few times.

Oh man. I have to remind my old lady about this weekly. Her mother has a really bad case of it.

A friend from college has three kids. I was talking to his wife about how much harder it is to raise kids these days when you can't even leave them in a car for five minutes to pop into a starbucks without some do-gooder calling the police for child endangerment.

Her response was to tell me how incredibly dangerous the world is, and to tell me a story. One time she was at a gas station with her kids in the car. The credit card reader at the pump wouldn't work, so she drove up to a spot just in front of the store, honked her horn and waved her credit card until the attendant came out to grab it to swipe it, then drove back to the pump to fill up. She wouldn't leave her kids for 30 seconds in the car, less than 30 feet away and in line of sight.

I think the bus is a lot less dangerous. Plain because there are always other people on the bus.

I rode the bus to my ballet lessons from the age of 8. But I was also taught that I don't take anything from strangers, I don't go with strangers, I don't go dark places, .....

I think the fear is a whole bunch of people seeing some young kid(s) by themselves might give someone an idea to follow them after they get off the bus stop. I think if something was to happen, it's unlikely anything would happen on the actual bus. With uber, the driver would have 0 illusion of getting away with anything, because uber already knows exactly who he is, and the rider can access that info later if it becomes a police matter. I think both are safe enough ways for a 14yr old to travel, but uber is marginally safer.

lol USA #1 childaments

when I first time took a crosstown bus by myself I was 7. At 10 I was picking up my 4-year old brother from daycare and bringing him home. I guess I faded 0.000001% chance of being gang-raped by a bunch of pedos, whatever

if your 14-year old can't figure out how to get home from pretty much anywhere in the contiguous US, get rid of him and adopt a new one

me and my friends used to wander and bike thru the forest and onto other streets all over our town when we were ages 6-10 lol, literally no one knew exactly where we were, just "outside" was the answer.

nobody does **** during the day, never had 1 problem. I lived in an OK neighborhood tho, its all relevant to where you live.

I could have written this verbatim.

A memory came to me recently, not something I had forgotten but I thought of it in a different way. For some ungodly reason my mother thought a spiked mullet might he a good haircut for her 3 year old in 1990. The hair was long enough to touch my shoulders, and I recall one time being on the street corner in front of my house and some rando in a pick up pulled up and addressed me as "little girl" out his window. I responded that I was a boy, and i dont recall what exactly happened after but he soon drove off. I wonder if i was a potential target.

good job little girl.



lol jk but ya you may have dodged a bullet.