ANALYSIS Several articles ago (“Te Steel Wave” in the May 2008 issue of STN), I argued for the
first of four crossing-related equipment changes that I feel strongly are needed to com- plete school bus conspicuity. Tese changes involve efforts to eliminate the ambiguity and temptations many motorists feel when confronting a loading or unloading school bus with its crossing devices engaged, and will clarify crossing procedures for school bus drivers, students and their parents. Tis second improvement is a 12-way flasher system.
Flashers, Signals and Recognition:
Part 1 By Ned Einstein
EVOLUTION OF THE EIGHT-WAY FLASHER SYSTEM Nearly two decades ago, the pupil transportation community acknowledged that red
flashers alone provided inadequate deterrence to motorists approaching school buses where these flashers were engaged. Part of the problem was that this single device had to serve too many roles for school bus drivers, motorists, students, parents and pedes- trians, and was involved in different crossing “steps,” depending on when and for how long it was engaged. For example, most states required four-way flashers to be engaged several hundred feet before the intended bus stop. When the bus came to a stop, how- ever, these same flashers remained engaged. Tus, there was no way to enhance or re- inforce the message for those motorists still approaching the bus who had not stopped for the red flashers while the bus was still moving. And there was no way to differentiate these flashers from those of a spectrum of other vehicles (ambulances, highway con- struction vehicles, fire trucks, etc.). To address this shortcoming, amber flashers, or “eight-way systems,” were devised
and eventually mandated — first by selected states, and finally by NHTSA for all states — although only a few states (e.g., Missouri) legislated retrofit provisions. So most states still deploy buses with both types of flashers. Similarly, most states have established different requirements for the use of “four-way” versus “eight-way” buses (California remains the primary exception). Particularly in California, Washington and Oregon – three states whose specifications were met only by Crown and Gillig prior to their with- drawal from the school bus market in 1991 — the durability of these vehicles in school bus duty cycles was so remarkable, in limited “school bus duty cycles,” that school dis- tricts and contractors in these states still deploy a large percentage of Crowns and Gil- ligs which contain only four-way flashers — a unique irony of their durability. Tis situa- tion has been compromised further by the practice of many drivers operating four-way buses (and aware of their limitations) who engage the pair of turn signals (engaging the “emergency lights”) as substitutes for the amber flashers (see article “Retrograde and Retrofits” in the October 2007 issue of STN) — thereby anointing their school districts and communities with three types of flashers and flasher procedures. Tat motorists are often confused by this variety of signals should not come as a surprise, even while they are often negligent for failing to obey these signals.
A QUICK GLIMPSE OF A FEW SERIOUS ACCIDENTS ILLUSTRATES THE PROBLEMS: • An elementary school student was waiting for his school bus, in his mother’s car, at the end of a long driveway to their ranch. As the bus approached its stop op- posite the student’s driveway, it engaged its amber flashers, while two motorists traveling a moderate distance apart were approaching from the opposite direc- tion. Te bus driver then engaged his red flashers after the first car passed, and interpreting them as the “signal to cross,” the student’s mother let her son out of her car. Unfortunately, the second motorist was following the first one and drove right through the red flashers. Te student stepped into the roadway in its path and was killed instantly.
• A new driver operating a “four-way” bus and aware of its limitations engaged his emergency tail lights (i.e., both turn signals) as a proxy for amber lights as he ap- proached a stop opposite the victim’s house and then failed to pull his bus over. As one might expect, a motorist approaching the bus from behind did not inter-
48 School Transportation News Magazine January 2010
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