First Student said it recorded its safest school year ever for 2011-2012 after “significantly” reducing the number of crashes and students injuries.
Data from the largest private operator of school buses for school districts in North America showed that the rate of student injuries fell to one per every 7.69 million miles driven. That figure equates to nearly 85 total student injuries being reported for the total number of miles driven during the school year, or an incident rate of slightly more than one-thousandth of one percent.
This past school year First Student logged more than 1 billion student boardings. Its school buses traveled more than 650 million miles as it transported 6 million students to and from school, said Gary Catapano, senior vice president of safety at First Student.
Additionally, the rate of a bus driver forgetting a student on board at the conclusion of a route was one incident in 100 million student boardings, or one child left behind for every 66.67 million miles driven, according to a company spokesperson.
“Our most recent safety statistics show that passengers are safer than ever when they board one of our school buses,” Catapano said. “We are very proud of our drivers, attendants and technicians who worked to reduce our incident numbers so dramatically. Although this was the safest year in our company’s history, we are constantly learning and improving. We will not rest until our number of incidents is zero.”
The company operates approximately 60,000 school buses each school day for more than 1,500 school districts.
