Why

[Blueberry]

Sometimes it looks like a game to see how slowly they can walk and how much traffic they can hold up.

[m.eliza]

I was biking behind one not too long ago on the first day of kindergarten. Every time it stopped (which was every three houses), the kids would get on, the moms would have them stop on the steps and turn around to have their picture taken while they wept with joy as their babies were carried away to school for the first time. The first time I witnessed the process it was touching, but after being stuck behind that bus for ten minutes I was over it.

[Tri Girl]

because children dawdle and aren't in a huge hurry to get on OR off the bus. I teach. I have to drag them off sometimes, and push and shove to get them back on.

[Owlie]

I always wanted to get off the bus FAST, but I was dragging an instrument case from 5th grade on, as well as a giant backpack...

[jessmarimba]

My county would pick up all of the kids in the same neighborhood on the same bus (5-18 year olds) and the kindergarten kids always fell asleep on the way home (we were about 30 minutes from the schools, but they got picked up first and had to sit through the middle and high school pickups as well as the trip home). They always took forever to get off b/c usually mom had to physically get on the bus and carry them off in the afternoon!

[badger]

kids really do dawdle!! I don't have any experience with school buses, but at the pool I swim our practise ends about 5 minutes after the kids' lessons. You see these kids (about 4-6years) just stand under the shower not doing anything while the mothers are at the side away from the spray pointing and shouting at them to do this and that. They still just stand there.

Sounds cute, but super annoying when you're standing there cold and chlorinated waiting for a kid to finally move on.

[Crankin]

Yes, and then there's the parents who have to have a long conversation with the driver and/or their kids as the kids are getting on the bus, and even after they are on the bus. Some might see it as a quaint reminder of living in a small town, but it seems like it's more an example of being totally self-absorbed, where these people have no idea they are holding up others who are trying to get somewhere.
I guess I was a bad parent . If I (or DH) was home when the bus came, we watched from the window as the kids waited in the driveway. When we moved and they were older (like grades 5 and 7), the other mothers sat with the kids in their cars, at the intersection of our very safe cul-de-sac street and another street, waiting for the bus. This was a source of constant amusement to my children, as they stood in the rain and snow, waiting for the bus. I don't think I ever talked to a bus driver.
They seem to have survived.