tl;dr: people with commercial drivers licenses can get much higher paying jobs doing other types of driving.
I quit my job as a bus driver on my second day because I was stressed out about hurting kids. (Yes, I know school buses are among the safest vehicles on the road; it was an irrational fear.)
But the other part of the equation is the schedule.
You are hired as a part-time employee, no benefits, but the schedule is such that finding a second job is unlikely. In the district I trained in, the schedule was 6-9, 12-2. Those are awkward hours to work around.
Curious: does your district have a shortage too?
If not, maybe the benefits make the difference?
It is also a good I'm retired but need to get out of the house to do something job.
Otherwise yes, you can earn more elsewhere with better hours.
School buses are super inefficient because kids are all spread out, so you end up driving a huge 6 MPG diesel a lot of miles to pick up 40 kids. Or worse, driving it a lot of miles to pick up less than 40 kids.
If you used smaller vehicles to pick up the same number of kids, you would need more of them, but they would each only have to cover a fraction of the bus route, and they get much better mileage.
The main reason not to use smaller vehicles is that you need more drivers. Not as many as you would have additional vehicles, because with shorter routes the same driver could cover two of them in the same time. But if you're all out of CDL drivers and there are a surplus of, effectively, Uber drivers, then that goes the other way, right?
They already get paid more than Uber drivers. The problem is that "more" isn't enough right now, and there comes a point where the alternative is less expensive.
> You'll get drivers that are more skilled and care more.
There isn't a "caring" section on the CDL test. Why is the assumption that anyone without a CDL is some kind of negligent drug addict?
Plus, the driver of a smaller vehicle has fewer kids to care about, so the same amount of caring goes less diluted. If you get into a collision, the driver only has to take care of 8 kids instead of 40.
It's a pretty standard/common assumption that employees that are paid more are willing to take on more responsibility and care more about their job.
> Maybe they need the job more because they can't just go make more money driving a big rig and are then less likely to jeopardize it by doing something wrong.
This hypothetical is unsubstantiated, and I can easily flip the script: How do you know the non-CDL drivers need the job more when they can easily just go work for Uber, or at a Taxi company or similar?
> Plus, the driver of a smaller vehicle has fewer kids to care about, so the same amount of caring goes less diluted. If you get into a collision, the driver only has to take care of 8 kids instead of 40.
Presumably, more caring drivers (even if they have less "care per kid") will get into fewer accidents, which will be a magnitude of impact more than any actions taken after an accident ever could.
In wealthy countries, labor costs are already much higher than the costs of operating the bus itself. (People often claim 70% vs. 30%.) If the economy grows in a way that benefits the working class, labor becomes even more expensive relative to the vehicle. The key to cost-effective services is therefore minimizing the number of people needed for providing the service.
Good solutions to skilled labor shortages frequently involve replacing the skilled labor with a larger amount of unskilled labor.
The labor shortages we see in the US are mostly caused by the wide gap between the working class and the (upper) middle class. The pandemic disrupted the job market and forced people out of their daily routines. In the aftermath, many people didn't return to their old jobs but started trying harder to improve their lives. They are looking for jobs that pay better, offer better working conditions, and where they get more respect. Many traditional services have a hard time hiring enough people. The solution is likely a mix of offering better jobs, providing the same service with fewer people, and not providing the service at all.
That's how the market adapts.