Among the prohibited practices for a bus driver, what does passenger-vehicle guidance say about talking with riders?

Explanation

Passenger-vehicle guidance puts conversation with riders in the same category as any other distraction and tells the driver to leave it alone while the bus is in motion. Unlike a truck driver, a bus driver has a steady supply of people a few feet away who want to talk, and the guidance treats that as a distraction to be declined rather than a courtesy to be offered, because the driver's attention is what is carrying everyone aboard. 49 CFR 383.117(a)(6) covers operating practices and procedures not otherwise specified, and no federal regulation addresses conversation with passengers at all, so this is attributed to the manual; the federal electronic-device rules at 49 CFR 392.80 and 392.82 are a separate matter covering texting and hand-held phone use, not talking with riders. The wrong options all carve out an exception the guidance does not give, whether by recasting conversation as a monitoring tool, tying the prohibition to a speed, or limiting it to one kind of service.

Source: 49 CFR 383.117(a)(6)