School team taking the bus

By Jonathan Riley

DIGBY COURIER

NovaNewsNow.com

Buses only.

Digby’s senior boy basketball coach has changed his team’s travel policy after hearing about the accident in New Brunswick.

“I don’t think I could get up the next day and carry on if one of my kids was killed,” says Mike Bartlett. “If we can’t get a bus, then we’ll reschedule.”

Bartlett has made that a strict rule for his team after seven basketball players and a coach’s wife died in an accident near Bathurst, N.B.

A 15-passenger van driven by a Bathurst coach slid across the highway into the path of an oncoming tractor-trailer. Investigators are now saying the road conditions at the time were a major factor in the accident.

Bartlett never used the type of van involved in the New Brunswick crash – Nova Scotia has not allowed them for school trips or activities for years.

He normally paid gas money to parents to drive players to games.

“It was convenience – you didn’t have to book a bus and you didn’t have to wait until the buses were available.

“Now our games can’t start until 5:30 or 6 p.m. If other teams don’t like it, that’s too bad.”

Bartlett says he already often gets in trouble with other coaches over his unwillingness to travel in bad weather.

“If I see a snowflake, I don’t want to go.”

Bartlett says the big yellow school buses are safer especially with a professional driver at the wheel.

He’s not sure if buses are going to be much more expensive however he has warned the players and parents that the team will be doing more fundraising.

Bartlett says the team had to raise money this year for gym time, referees, travel and hotels.

“If we haven’t raised enough money to pay for a trip, then the parents will have to pay. And if it storms and we have to stay overnight, that’s what we’re going to do.

“Money shouldn’t be an issue but it is.

“I don’t understand how the government says they want kids to be active and healthy and then turn around make us pay for gym time and buses.”

Bartlett says the school principal has told him he is okay with the decision. Bartlett has scheduled buses for the remainder of the year’s games.

“The buses are there and it’s just like if you can’t get gym time, you reschedule. It’s only a game.”