Going Beyond FMVSS 111
Calls are issued for increased vigilance and updates to the current industry standards
Part I By Michelle Fisher
It takes both constant vigilance and continual training to keep the nation’s
students completely safe in and around the school bus, according to industry professionals and safety experts such as Dick Fischer. A longtime trainer, father of School Bus Safety Week and a lauded mirror-safety specialist, Fischer said he believes that every student fatality in the school-bus danger zone boils down to human error. He cites causes such as driver distraction, improper mirror adjust- ment or installation and inadequate driver and student training. “My main concern is that, since last year’s story [page 50 of the January 2009
issue] about mirrors on a school bus, essentially nothing has changed. What I said about students being killed standing in front of the bus remains true today,” Fischer says, pointing to one fatality that occurred last year when the driver says she simply did not see the child in front of the bus. “Because of this, many families and drivers have had very sad days since 1992.” Tat was the year Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 111, Performance
Requirements for School Bus Mirror Systems, was published. Since, Fischer’s ap- peal for improved training and adherence to the federal standard as well as the National School Transportation Specification and Procedures (NSTSP) is echoed by Peter Lawrence, transportation director at Fairport Central School District near Rochester, N.Y.. “While they’re (the manufacturers) meeting the FMVSS 111 standard, they
should be trying to meet the industry standard, which is outlined in the NSTSP manual,” Lawrence says. In June 2009, one of Lawrence’s drivers alerted him to a visibility problem
with the right-side rearview mirror as it was partially obstructed by the wind- shield’s unwiped area. “He was being a proactive driver, and he offered a couple of solutions for
fixing the problem. One of his suggestions was to extend the current mirror brackets or to use a new bracket,” recalls Lawrence, who took the issue straight to bus manufacturer Blue Bird and called for a change in mirror installation procedures. He points to page 48, section B, of the 2005 NSTSP manual, which states that the right-side rearview mirror “shall not be obscured by the unwiped portion of the windshield” (see photos of the Blue Bird Vision’s right-side mir- ror, before and after, on the next page). “It is also in FMVSS 111, but where it’s located within it, manufacturers can
say that it only applies to automobiles. My contention, and Mr. Fischer’s con- tention, is that FMVSS 111 needs to be amended so that sentence is put in the school bus section,” Lawrence said.
42 School Transportation News Magazine January 2010
One of Lawrence’s drivers alerted him to the visibility issue (top) and proactively helped come up with a solution (bottom).
Lawrence blogged about the poor visibility when using this mirror before the problem was corrected by the manufacturer.
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