A couple days ago I had a conversation with someone about their school bus experiences, and I realized that I never would understand that because I was always driven to school.
I think it is beneficial to take the bus because you get to know the people in your neighborhood that also go to your school. It was always hard for me to form friendships with kids of the neighborhood since they already had their friendship groups formed.
I am not quite sure what actually goes down on school busses, but the media sometimes portrays bus rides as a rough experience due to mean people and bullies. There are mean people everywhere and people will never be as nice as we would expect them to.