PUBLISHER'S CORNER
LESSONS FROM FLIGHT 370 TONY CORPIN, PUBLISHER
allows air traffic control to track it. But that technology was disabled either by malfunction or intent. Tere were many more questions than answers as facts slowly trickled in from government officials and media out- lets. But what lessons can be learned from this event by the school bus industry? Let’s explore the frightening scenario of a school bus full of children disappearing. Te first word I can think of is panic, but school transporters are also professionals who have (or should have) the training to keep everyone as calm and collected as possible during such an incident. Tis isn’t something that’s likely to happen, as the Transportation Security Administration has said it has received no credible terrorism threats regarding school buses. But there are plenty of nefarious people out there capable of all sorts of depravity. If such a scenario happens, are you prepared for the emergency situation? Does your district provide any special training for emergencies like this?
A
One safety measure to consider is a special emergency word that’s set up for school bus drivers to communicate with dispatch...
A transportation director I spoke with recently said driver training is imperative so that this sort of situation
can be resolved quickly and safely. How connected are your drivers with dispatch, should an incident arise? One safety measure to consider is a special emergency word that’s set up for school bus drivers to com-
municate with dispatch that indicates distress but also doesn’t alert the assailant. Have you set up something similar at your district? If you haven’t, you should as it doesn’t cost anything but a little time and training. Plus it’s insurance against a situation if it presents itself. Bus 123 has gone missing. What will you do? Let’s activate the GPS and locate it. Granted, not all school buses have GPS tracking, but the majority do
in some form or another. Are your school buses using GPS tracking? Tese days, most video camera man- ufacturers offer this as an additional option at a minimal cost. It’s a better choice to protect your students’ lives not to mention the school district’s liability by spending a little more money upfront rather than being proven to be negligent later. What if the GPS on school bus 123 isn’t responding and neither is the driver? Again, this is unlikely,
but something could happen to the radio and/or GPS preventing it from functioning. Also consider if the school driver becomes incapacitated and someone else takes over. Remember that a lot of students on board will have cell phones to communicate with parents and the
district to locate the bus quickly. Also, law enforcement has the ability to triangulate the signals from onboard cell phones to locate the vehicle. Do you ever have your school bus driver talk to the students about emergency situations? What to do if the student's cell phones are disabled or disposed of? Te last line of defense is the
community. If someone is driving around a big, yellow school bus in a place it shouldn’t be, the hope is that someone from the community would reach out and notify someone. After considering the preceding scenarios, I hope you have reason to take action. Te story of the missing
Malaysian Airlines flight provides a good lesson to our industry that being prepared and well trained is our obligation to our passengers.
s the globally captivating news on missing Malaysian Airline Flight 370 evolved at press time, the world mobilized to find the missing plane and passengers. Experts presented new theories on why and how this event could have happened. News outlets speculated on different scenarios and looked at the possibilities of where flight 370 could have gone and why.
Te Boeing 777 aircraft is equipped with the technology of an onboard computer and transponder that
66 School Transportation News April 2014
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