While there are times designated throughout the year to focus on school bus safety, such as School Bus Safety Week in October or the American School Bus Council’s Love the Bus in February, there is no wrong time to stop and take a second look at your passenger safety training. Every opportunity to reinforce safety is time well spent.
Anytime is also a great time to remind motorists that if a school bus is stopped on an undivided road, its lights are flashing and the stop arm is out, every vehicle must stop regardless of whether you are behind the bus or in the opposite lane of traffic. If the road is divided, only those behind the school bus must stop, but all drivers should always be aware of the school bus and its function within the community—to carry children to and from school safely.
This seems rather simple and basic, but thousands of motorists every year drive around stopped school buses despite the great risk to the children getting on and off the bus.
This should be easy—if the bus is stopped, so are you. If it were your child on that bus you would want every vehicle to stop until your child was safely in your care.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), travel by school bus is 70 times safer than travel by any other mode of transportation. Yes, 70 times safer. Passengers are incredibly safe within the school bus, but it is the area around the bus that presents the greatest challenges.
Ensuring the safety around the bus is a group effort. It takes much more than the driver and the child. It also takes the parents and caregivers at the bus stop and the motoring public to ensure that all children are safe as they get on and off the bus. Children should receive no less.
Editor’s Note: Ronna Weber is the executive director of the National School Transportation Association, which includes member representatives from private school bus contractors from across North America.
