NATIONAL COALITION OF SCHOOL BUS SAFETY NEWS 2006

The 35th Annual National School Bus Loading & Unloading Survey
TOPEKA, Kan. January 19, 2006

The 35th Annual National School Bus Loading & Unloading Survey reports 14 students were killed by their own school bus during  the 2004-2005 school year, nearly a 300-percent increase over the previous four-year average.

Meanwhile, motorists who illegally passed stopped school buses caused 6 student deaths in the loading/unloading zone, the lowest such number in the past four years. Combined there were 20 total student deaths in the loading/unloading zone, slightly more than double the number of student deaths recorded during the 2003-2004 school year.

Fifteen of the 50 states plus Washington, D.C., reported at least one student fatality in the loading/unloading zone. One entity did not respond but it was not immediately known what one it was.

5- and 6-year-old students represented the largest category of children killed, six and five respectively, and accounted for over half of the total fatalities.  Three-fourths of all fatalities were female. Twelve of the 20 total loading/unloading fatalities occurred in the afternoon during student egress, 17 were reported with dry road conditions, 15 occurred on city streets and 14 occurred during clear weather conditions. All but one of the fatalities occurred during daylight, with 12 occurring in urban and eight occurring in rural areas.

Comments:

Thirty-five years ago, when I first became interested in school bus safety, I co-authored a school bus safety report that was jointly released by our county dental and medical societies.  In the report we cited lack of proper bus structure, failure to properly pad and anchor seats and lack of seat belts as areas of concern.

We also noted that child pedestrian fatalities outside the bus were a major concern.  We pointed out that children were more often killed by their own school bus than by illegally passing vehicles. The characteristics of the fatalities from being run over by the school bus were clearly evident; three quarters were very young children, on the way home, more girls than boys.

In a typical accident the child gets off, starts to walk away, drops a paper with work completed in kindergarten or early grade, the item blows under the bus in front of a wheel.  The child turns, goes back to the bus, reaches under to retrieve just as the bus starts to move.

Meanwhile, the driver has observed that the area is clear of children, he or she then looks to their left, checking to see if they can pull out from the curb.  If road is clear the driver moves forward.  It is at the instant that the driver averts their eyes from the curbside to the road that the child drops his precious paper and pursues it.

The paper  called for legislation top require all school buses transporting children K-3 to  also have aboard a trained monitor, whose prime responsibility was to assure  that before the bus moved that all children were clear.

Legislation to that effect was introduced in the New Jersey Assembly but did not pass because of cost concerns.

In the decades that have passed we have heard much from the school bus establishment in opposition to implementing safety features such as seat belts that school busses are sooooo safe that seat belts are not needed.  School officials go on to declare that the real problem is outside the bus where children are killed.  Missing the real cause, penalties for passing school buses are perpetually raised.  Nothing is done about the majority of fatalities caused by the bus itself.

The problem is that drivers do not have eyes in back of their heads and cannot look  both ways at the same time.  Telling (the code word is educating) the drivers to watch out is meaningless.

What can  be done?

The best solution is a monitor on buses with little kids as we suggested 35 years ago. Radar like sensors are available to detect motion around the bus before the bus moves. Crossing gates are helpful with children crossing the street but have no effect on the dropped item problem.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” George Santayana, The Life of Reason

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