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INDUSTRY CONNECTIONS


PRELIMINARY LOADING AND UNLOADINGSURVEY RESULTS RELEASED


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£ In the weeks following Superstorm Sandy, student transporters rallied to help victims in need of supplies and support. Trans Tech Bus stocked a bus with supplies for storm victims in early November, while Student Transportation of America drivers delivered seven school buses full of supplies to hard-hit communities in New York and New Jersey (see p. 20 for more on Sandy’s aftermath).


ine children, five boys and four girls, were reportedly killed while loading or unloading school buses during the 2011-2012 school year, according to preliminary results of an annual survey. The National School Bus Loading


School Bus Advertising Bill


Re-Introduced in Florida By this summer, school


districts in the Sunshine State could be allowed to erect billboards on the sides of school buses as a way to generated much-needed revenue. Tis is the third time the state legislature has considered a bill that prescribes restrictions on content, how the ads are to be placed and how school districts can obtain related revenue. Te most recent bill failed to pass committee by the time the legislative calendar expired last spring.


Companion bills authorizing ads on public school buses drew overwhelming support in January 2012 but never made it out of committee. Te latest legislation would similarly require 50 percent of ad revenues to be allocated for student


transportation programs. Additionally, 15 percent would be allocated for school district driver education programs, 30 percent for behind-the-wheel instruc- tion and another 35 percent for “other programs as determined by the school district.” If a district does not offer driver education, the 15 percent of revenue would go to bicycle or pedestrian safety programs. HB 1 also prescribes that ad content


must be “family and child friendly.” Restrictions include advertisements for alcohol, tobacco products or prescription drugs and with sexual content, political content, or any content deemed “inap- propriate for or offensive or insensitive to children or the community.” Ads also cannot interfere with the


operation of any door, window, required letting, lamp, reflector or other safety device, be placed on an emergency exit door or interfere with school bus iden- tification. If passed, a law would go into effect on July 1.


and Unloading Survey has been con- ducted since 1970, first by the Kansas Department of Transportation and, for the past two decades, by the Kan- sas Department of Education’s School Bus Safety Unit. Eight fatalities were reported by states for the 2010-2011 school year. Results often indicate a school bus was immediately in the vicinity when the incident occurred, and seldom reflect when a fatality occurred before or after the bus was on scene. Two recently reported fatalities


occurred in Georgia. A 17-year-old girl was killed by a passing vehicle as she crossed in front of her school bus, and an 11-year-old boy tried to catch his school bus after missing it only to be struck by an oncoming vehicle. Other states that reported a student


fatality are Iowa, Mississippi, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Washington State and Wyoming. Passing vehicles struck and killed six of the nine stu- dents, and the other three were hit by a school bus. A KSDE representative told SCHOOL


TRANSPORTATION NEWS three of the stu- dents were going home after school, five were headed to school and anoth- er was on a school activity trip. Three students were killed while waiting for their morning bus, two while exiting the bus, two while walking to the morning bus stop and two while walk- ing home from the afternoon bus stop.


Final results are expected to be published in early 2013 on the KSDE website.


14 School Transportation News January 2013


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