Going Beyond FMVSS 111
Safety Experts Say Common Sense Coupled with Vigilance Can Help Save Lives
Part II By Michelle Fisher
Accident prevention is a pressing con-
cern for everyone charged with safely transporting students, from school bus drivers to transportation supervisors to superintendents. Most will agree that proper training and enforcement of stan- dards, such as the FMVSS 111 and the National School Transportation Specifi- cations and Procedures, are essential. But others contend that more vigilance and common sense are needed to fill in the gaps — gaps through which students fall, sometimes fatally. Now, alternative prevention methods,
such as escorting students and building “bus corrals,” are attracting more atten- tion nationwide. California may be alone in enacting
legislation requiring bus drivers to escort elementary and middle school students across roadways, but other states utilize bus monitors for this purpose, including Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and North Carolina. In December, the Knox- ville, Tenn., police chief assigned officers to ride on school bus routes known for stop-arm violations after a student was harmed in an accident. Such preventative measures are ap-
plauded by industry safety expert Dick Fischer, who has made it his mission to train transportation officials and drivers
on FMVSS 111. After decades of working in school transportation, Fischer says he still gets angry when driver error results in the loss of a child. He believes that the 2009 deaths of two kindergartners in At- lanta were completely preventable. “If you used the California method, we
would have two children still alive today,” Fischer says. “My question is: How many of you would let your 5-year-old cross the highway by himself with no supervision? Ten, why would you let one depart a school bus and cross the roadway?” Larry Bluthardt, director of the School
Bus Safety Education Unit at the Kansas State Department of Education, oversees the compilation of nationwide statistics tracking these student fatalities. His office cited 18 instances during the 2008-2009 school year, nearly three times as many as during the previous school year. Noting there are “slight fluctuations” in the statis- tics from year to year, Bluthardt attributes most accidents to driver distraction and recommends common-sense solutions such as increased vigilance and training. “Drivers are distracted and not thinking
about when they’re stopping and starting. Tey’ve got to constantly be on the alert,” Bluthardt says. “Tat’s why we have Dick come into our state every year to educate drivers, superintendents, transportation
48 School Transportation News Magazine February 2010
supervisors, etc., on FMVSS 111 and the proper way to load and unload students. “I have no idea how many kids [Dick]
has saved here in Kansas: one for sure and probably many more.”
ESCORTS PROVIDE SUPERVISION, SAFETY CHECKS John Green, supervisor of California’s
Office of School Transportation, attri- butes the state’s long-standing record of zero outside-the-bus fatalities to its 1971 law requiring a driver to shut down the bus, take the keys and escort across the street all students up to eighth grade. When picking up students, bus drivers ac- tivate their flashing lights before they pull up and stop, then instruct the students to stay put until they turn off the engine. “In other states, the drivers signal the
students across with a hand gesture, and students walk across the roadway in stopped traffic to board the bus. Te dif- ference in California is that students are instructed not to move. Drivers will shut the vehicle down, making sure the park- ing brake is set. Tey use a hand-held stop sign, follow a set of procedures to clear the bus and cross in front of it, making sure all traffic is stopped — then direct the stu- dents when to cross,” Green says. “In the afternoon, it’s just the opposite.”
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