ANALYSIS Tere have been plenty of explanations for the phenomenon of school bus pass-bys.
Among them is lax law enforcement, which is increasingly eroding as funding for such enforcement priorities have dwindled. Tis is despite an explosion of useful technology employed to simply enforce and practically guarantee conviction. But the dozens of crossing accidents I have examined as a forensic expert have con-
Flashers, Signals and Recognition:
Part 2 By Ned Einstein
vinced me that a principal reason that motorists fail to stop for engaged red flashers is that, accompanied only by amber signals (if then), they do not recognize them as traf- fic signals at all. Instead, motorists cite the fact that a large spectrum of other vehicles — construction vehicles, police cars, ambulances, utility vehicles — also possess and engage red and sometimes amber flashers. Further, there are no requirements for how long vehicles behind or in front of these buses are expected to remain stopped until the flashers disengage. Because requirements for motorists confronting others vehicles with red and amber
flashers are different, these drivers don’t always know or remember the procedures spe- cific to school buses — and fear waiting for an extended period of time as they might at railroad crossings. Worse still, many students and parents think that the engagement of the red flashers is the signal for them to enter the roadway. Some school districts deliberately employ them for this purpose as a policy matter — as the transportation director did in the first accident scenario cited last month in Part 1 of this series. [Editor’s note: read the article at
www.stnonline.com/go/447.] To further enhance the effectiveness of red flashers, we have added both amber flash-
ers and, later, stop arms to the equation, although many older buses without one or both are still deployed in states without retrofit provisions. Te “mixed fleets” that these school districts and contractors deploy add yet more confusion to the meaning of the red flashers for students and parents, as well as motorists. Te level of carnage from these failures is grossly under-reported because most
crossing accident statistics (including those cited by the Kansas Department of Edu- cation and those included in a recent National Academy of Science report) count only those crossing-related fatalities and serious injuries where the students were struck by their own buses. Yet, the vast majority of crossing victims are struck by third-party vehicles passing them. Tis point at least received an asterisk in the re- cent National Academy of Science report, of which I was one of many co-authors (although duped victim would be a better characterization). And apart from recom- mendations for equipment, the issue of crossing received no attention in any of the last 70 years’ worth of the National Congress on School Transportation. Te full package of current crossing equipment and procedures in effect (red
flashers, stop arms and amber flashers) would seem to provide enough informa- tion for an enlightened and responsible motorist. Yet, it apparently doesn’t provide enough information for many motorists, particularly amidst errors made by drivers, school district and contractor management and, increasingly, software. A key to why it doesn’t is evident from the fact that, in comparison to school bus pass-bys, the percentage of motorists who ignore red traffic signals at tri-colored traffic lights is practically negligible. Te most obvious conclusion one can draw from this is that many motorists recognize the rules that red traffic signals invoke only when those signals are packaged with both amber and green signals. Among other factors, when packaged with green signals, motorists confronting engaged red ones recognize that they will be retained for only a short and often predictable period of time, and have fewer motives to ignore them. Part three of this series will further explore why the current array of crossing equip-
ment is inadequate and will identify what is clearly needed to stem the tide of a significant albeit unacknowledged volume of blood and gore. What is obviously missing may be illustrated by the fact that most of us regularly cruise in our private automo- biles for minutes at a time, with our minds filled with who-knows-what, yet never run through a red light. Tink hard about what’s missing from our equation. We shall ex- plore it further in the next installment. n
50 School Transportation News Magazine February 2010
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