PUBLISHER'S CORNER
Saving Kids' Lives TONY CORPIN, PUBLISHER L
ike all good parents, mine always gave me advice to keep me safe from the dangers that were around me. I was told to look both ways before I crossed the street and never to talk to strangers. But I don’t recall them ever telling me about the school bus safety or the potential dangers that existed around the bus.
How are kids learning the correct behavior and who is responsibility for teaching them? Is it the parents, the bus driver or the school districts responsibility? Te easy answer is yes; all of those parties are responsible. But is training really happening on all levels? Or is every- one looking around at one another to teach the kids? Parents seemingly know all when it comes to their kids, but who is educating Mom and
Dad on proper etiquette around the school bus and potential dangers that exist? Head Start operations, for example, are required to teach school bus safety to students and parents at a young age, when for the most part it’s a best practice for school districts. Tere are numerous aids that exist for teaching young kids school bus safety like the
“Winnie the Pooh School Bus Safety Adventure” from Disney. But that program misses a lot of important points and is three decades old. More current is “Buster the Bus,” a live training tool from Robotronics, and student-safety, school-bus training programs from the School Bus Safety Company. Maybe you are using the local police to come in and educate kids or a cus- tomized presentation your district or company created. What training resources do you use? School bus drivers are continually called upon to do many things in their day-to-day job
function. With regards to kids they give the usual speech at the beginning of the school year like no horse play on the bus, stay seated while the bus is in motion, keep your hands and arms (and legs) inside the bus, and pay attention to directions. But the fact is most kids aren’t paying attention, and if they are the information is forgotten in a short period of time unless it’s reinforced. Does your transportation team reinforce the message of school bus safety on a weekly, monthly or yearly basis? In the past eight years from 2004-2012, 92 children were killed in the danger zones of
school buses according to Kansas State Department of Education surveys of danger zone fatalities. Tis is an average of eleven and a half per year. As we analyze these catastrophes, we learn that 24 of these were children killed at the front of the bus while crossing. A total of 37 other major fatalities occurred because illegally passing vehicles. Te most fatalities oc- curred in the state of Georgia, which had a total of 16. While additional states ranged from one to six fatalities. Children under the age of seven tend to be more fearless and carefree … and susceptible. Tis age group suffered three times as many fatalities per mile than the any other age range at 40 fatalities over roughly 12 million route miles nationwide. Tis data reflects the necessity of training younger children especially to learn the dangers
around the bus. Increasing awareness and training is major tool that ever increasingly needs to be utilized to help prevent child fatalities. Too many student fatalities also occur as a result of illegal passers. STN has informally
approached the National Safety Council to petition the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrator to add more info on bus safety, specifically stopping for buses, to the motor-vehicle tests. Tese agencies have the power to effect change for the school bus in- dustry and the motoring public, alike. So if you know someone that could use a refresher on school bus safety and the danger zones — be them a parent, school bus driver or especially a child — remind them of the importance of school bus safety and the danger zone. You might just be saving a kids life.
90 School Transportation News July 2013
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