Never caught a bus alone?

I had to help a sixteen year old catch a bus yesterday. She had never done it before. She had never been on a bus apart from a school excursion bus.

A school excursion bus is a completely different sort of experience of course. Someone at the school orders the bus.Your parents pay the excursion money. The teachers tell the driver where you are going and see to it that you all get off at the right place. You go back to school on the bus.

This girl had never been anywhere else without a parent or other adult. She had no idea how to catch a bus. That she felt embarrassed would be an understatement. 

Had she been on a train alone? No. On just one occasion she had been in a taxi on her own. Her mother takes her to school. Her grandfather picks her up from school. The problem? Her grandfather was not available. It is the only time in all these years he has not been available. 

Her mother had rung me in exasperation, "She's useless. Will you go down and tell her what to do. See she gets on the right bus. Tell the driver she gets off at the stop before the terminus. I hope to hell she can find her way from there."

I went. I went because I was furious with her mother. Yes, a sixteen year old should be able to catch a bus alone. There are sixteen year old girls who have sailed around the world alone. This sixteen year old has not, until now, ever been given the opportunity to do anything like that.

At the bus stop I discovered that she had not got on the bus she should have caught because "I didn't think it was the right one." It was the right one but I admit there is a rule about picking up and setting down which is confusing. That particular stop is a layover though and it does not apply. I explained. We waited for the next bus and I gave her some tips for her English assignment. The bus came in and I watched her get on, use her card to pay the fare. I interfered enough to say to the driver, "She isn't sure about this route but she needs to get off at the stop before the terminus."

"Not a problem," I was told. 

But it is a problem. A sixteen year old can get a licence to learn to learn to drive and this sixteen year old cannot catch a bus.