School Buses! (@#$%#%^)

I just made a short trip to the house from work, timing it just perfectly to fall in behind a freakin' school bus. I live off a two lane highway, most of it a no passing zone, so I'm trapped. I've just got one observation-when I was in school and rode a bus, there was a "bus stop" where all the riders would gather and get on the bus for the trip to school and where you were deposited on the trip home. Now it appears that the buses do "home delivery" for each kid. I swear the bus stopped 10 times in a one mile stretch and each time let out only one kid. When did this start?
Speaking of buses, it was rumored at our bus stop that there was a "30 minute rule"- that if the bus was 30 minutes late, you could walk back home and take the day off with no repercussions. I was such a slack-ass student that I would pray every day that the 30 minute rule could be invoked. In 6 plus years of bus riding, only once was the bus more than 30 minutes late and a few of us, (who probably made up the rumor), ran home as fast as possible. Needless to say the repercussions came not only from the school but also included a major league ass-whipping at home. The so called "30 minute rule" was never mentioned again.
I never did a homework assignment for about 10 years (which accounted for my horrid grades), so I never wanted to darken the doors of a classroom for fear of being called upon to read something I hadn't even attempted. I literally prayed that the school bus would crash on the way to school-nothing major involving injuries-just enough to either force the school to let us go home or maybe we could spend the day talking to the investigating officer. No luck on that either. I've heard people say they wish they could go back and be a kid again-Hell I'd sooner wish I was in a rest home with a tube snaked down my throat. Growing up was some painful shit I wouldn't ever want to repeat.