School bus drivers and school transportation professionals wear many hats. Not only are they responsible for safely ferrying an estimated 45 million students each day to and from school, and as such a vital cog in the proverbial wheel of the nation’s educational institutions, but they are members of the public safety community.
If there’s a local emergency that requires evacuations, often the yellow school bus is pulled into duty, as are school district and school bus company drivers. To help them do their jobs, mobile communication tools such as two-way radios are commonplace, just like with emergency first responders.
While school bus drivers are trained at the use of these radios, there are some 276 million people who are mobile phone subscribers, according to testimony given to Congress last month by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Even if only half of these cell phone users are regular motorists, consider the sheer number of possible distracted drivers on the nation’s roadways at any given time. In fact, according to Genachowski, nearly 11 percent of all drivers on the road are holding an electronic device while behind the wheel. That equates to 812,000 distracted drivers at any given moment.
With all of their defensive driving acumen required of them during pre- and in-service training, school bus drivers already have enough on their mind besides being on the lookout for wayward, texting, talking motorists. Yet, it’s a fact of life that school bus drivers must anticipate potential harm lurking around every corner, in every lane change. Certainly, society is playing catch up in its efforts to educate the public about not using mobile devices while behind the wheel. But the federal government and states are pushing the issue with its youth. I’ve written before in this space about the importance of getting buy-in from this important demographic.
It’s starting to catch on. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood blogged today about a fifth-grader in Florida who recently won an essay contest on distracted driving that was sponsored by her local newspaper.
To truly affect the widespread problem of distracted driving, especially that caused by cell phones, the youth must continue to receive the message that this behavior is dangerous and potentially deadly. It is particularly bad for teen drivers. While NHTSA and the FMCSA are targeting cell phone usage by both teen and school bus and motorcoach drivers, students, especially, need to hear the statistics. According to NHTSA, driver distraction caused 16 percent of all fatal crashes in 2008, and more than one out of every five crashes that resulted in an injury. The phenomenon also costs money, as Morgan Snyder says in her award-winning essay, to the tune of $43 billion a year.
As the federal and state governments bring stakeholders together to battle driver distraction, schools must be included in the conversation. Not only do they have direct access to the students, but schools also play a big role in teen driver education. Many school transportation departments are also responsible for teaching or administering driver’s ed classes.
