Magic bus (driver)
Bus driver Andy Caroselli
Andy Caroselli’s first job involved driving something with two wheels and very little horsepower … one horsepower, to be exact. “I used to be a harness race driver at the Meadows,” says Caroselli. “I always liked being around horses.”
He recounts growing up not far from the racetrack and eventually driving for horse owners like Del Miller. That was back in the 1960s and ’70s. Nowadays, the 69-year-old Caroselli is piloting something with much more horsepower, but at slower speeds. “I needed something for down the road with more security like hospitalization and a pension,” he remembers. A conversation he had at a dinner party given by his in-laws led him to consider a job as a school bus driver, and he began driving for Schweinebraten Bus Co. in Washington. Soon after, he signed on full-time with Canon-McMillan School District in 1984. Thirty-two years later, he still loves his job.
“I get along with the kids, it’s easy,” he says. “I have no problem with the kids. They get loud a little bit, but they do listen.” Three decades of schoolchildren have called him “Mister Andy” as he makes his daily rounds of the bus stops. His longtime route is to St. Louise de Marillac in Upper St. Clair, hauling students in grades kindergarten through seven. Through the years, he’s worked bus routes all around the Canon-McMillan district and transported kids of all ages, plus run additional trips for sports teams and special events. He’s pleased when some of his former passengers run into him and remember him fondly.
“I’ll be out at a restaurant and have a family come up and say I hauled them back in the ’80s and they have a couple of kids already,” he says with a laugh.
Both his passengers and his employers depend on him and appreciate his dedication and good nature. “Andy is a joy to have around,” says Matt Harding, director of support services for Canon-McMillan School District. “He is always good for a laugh.”
What’s the secret to being a good school bus driver?
“You keep an eye on them, but you can’t keep yelling at them,” Caroselli says. “Just talk nice to them and a lot of times that’ll work better than screaming at them.”
Harding credits Caroselli’s hard work and good attitude for his success behind the wheel and with the students and parents, adding, “Andy is very dependable, safe, and his students and their respective parents love him.”
Balancing safety while trying to keep rambunctious kids under control is not easy, yet Caroselli takes it all in stride. He remembers one young student in particular who used to try his patience and resort to clever means to avoid the driver’s watchful eye. “There was this one little kid who was a character, and I always had him in the front seat,” he says with a chuckle. “He always liked to get on the floor. He’d be where he was supposed to be, but by the time I got halfway through my run, he’d be in the back seats. He’d crawl on the floor on his stomach under where I could see him.”
These days, school buses are equipped with video cameras that monitor conduct by both the students and the bus drivers and also record audio. That helps drivers to be able to focus more on the road, though Caroselli admits he always tries to keep an eye on what students behind him are doing.
“It depends on how you handle them. You don’t nitpick with them all of the time. You have to watch them, and now we have cameras on the bus.”
Overall, he says kids haven’t changed much over the years and that he’s always been fortunate to have a good group of passengers who pretty much behave themselves. When they start to get out of hand, he has a few techniques that are proven to help calm even the rowdiest youngsters.
And at 69, Caroselli can also use those techniques on his 13 grandchildren. He and his wife, Sherma, enjoy travel and plan to do more of it when he retires. When might that be? “I just renewed my license again,” he laughs. “I’ll probably retire in two more years.” Still, once “Mister Andy” retires, he may not park the school bus for good or hang up his keys permanently. “When I retire, my wife and I would like to travel. But I’ll go back just as a substitute driver … maybe for one year.”