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Defining Student Fatalities at the School Bus Stop By Sylvia Arroyo
It’s a question we have asked for years:
how many actual school bus-related student fatalities are there nationwide in a given year? Answering this question becomes a
conversation starter particularly at the time of this writing, when the Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) releases its 2010-2011 National School Bus Loading and Unloading Survey results. According to the survey, in which all 50 states participated, eight fatalities were reported — five fewer than reported for the 2009-2010 school year. Tree years ago, STN addressed the issue of how national
school transportation
fatality studies are often unable to provide a complete picture of the total number of student fatalities per year. Be it the KSDE Loading and Unloading survey, or a separate analysis by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Fatal Accident Reporting System (FARS), there is no standard definition of a school bus loading or unloading fatality.
Only fatalities involving school children in
or around the loading or unloading areas of a school bus are included in the KSDE survey. Onboard fatalities are not included, but what is in question is other fatalities that occur in the questionable gray area of a school bus loading/unloading zone. For example, how are student fatalities counted when the occur on the way to the school bus stop, or when they occur while children are waiting at the stop before the school bus arrived. Pete Japikse, director of pupil
transportation for the Ohio Department of Education, said he reports a student fatality if the student who was killed was a scheduled passenger on the school bus. Te state reported zero student fatalities in the 2010-2011 survey, but reported two deaths in the 2009-2010 survey and one in previous years. “It’s not a state standard but a practical
thing,” Japikse said. “Anything else is a traffic accident, and I think you’ll find that [definition] with all state directors.”
By the Numbers Here’s a snapshot on some of the findings from the 2010-2011 National School
Bus Loading and Unloading Survey. Visit
www.stnonline.com/go/859 for more details from this 41st annual count.
8: Total number of student deaths 7: States that reported a fatality 7: Number of fatalities that took place in clear daylight. One
was under cloudy conditions. All incidents took place on dry roads.
6: Children who were killed between the ages of 6 and 8 5: Number of children killed going to school
22 School Transportation News Magazine January 2012 Rebecca Rocha with the Texas
Department of Public Safety said the state does the same thing as Ohio. “We report a student fatality for the survey if the student was a scheduled passenger of the school bus.” Texas reported one student fatality in the latest KSDE survey. It last reported four in the 2008-2009 survey. Like Ohio and Texas, the state of
Georgia does not keep a formal count on the total number of student fatalities near or at the school bus loading/ unloading zone. “We try to follow the guidelines by the Kansas Department of Education, which is the school bus being present and a student either attempting to board or depart from the bus,” said T. Carlton Allen, program director of pupil transportation for the Georgia Department of Education. “Tat is the way we understand what they are asking.” Georgia reported two student fatalities
in the 2010-2011 survey and five fatalities in the previous 2009-2010 survey. “In the last two years we’ve had the bad honor of leading the nation,” he added.
TURNING TRAGEDY INTO TRAINING In tracking school bus-related student
fatalities, School Transportation News relies on the national survey as well as on Internet research and news media alerts. Generally, STN finds news about fatalities that usually go uncounted at the state level. Between January and early December
last year, we found 23 school bus- related student fatalities. Of these, there were three student fatalities in Texas, Mississippi and Georgia, and two in Iowa. One student fatality each occurred in 12 states — California, Washington, Wisconsin, New York and Florida to name a few. September and November had the most fatalities with five each. However, there is no guarantee that we find all student fatalities across the United
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