Protected A
WRITTEN BY SEAN GALLAGHER |
SEAN@STNMEDIA.COM
Bus O
n July 15, 1976, armed men abducted the passengers and driver of a California school bus, driving them 11 hours to
the outskirts of the San Francisco Bay Area and transferring them to a moving truck that was buried in a quarry. Chowchilla, a small town in the Central
Valley where this hijacking occurred, is perhaps best known for the infamous kidnapping. And with just cause. Te captors blocked a Madera County road and stormed the school bus as it returned 26 children from a field trip. Ranging in age from 5 to 14, the pas- sengers were attending summer classes at Dairyland Elementary School when they were snatched along with their bus driver. Te kidnappers hid the school bus and transferred their abductees into moving vans and then drove them to a quarry, where they imprisoned the bus driver and the students in a buried moving truck with a small amount of food and water, and several mattresses. After surviving 16 hours, the driver, Ed
Ray, and the children escaped by stacking the mattresses so a group could reach the opening at the top of the truck and remove the 100-pound industrial batteries that weighted down the exit. Te group emerged from their under-
ground confinement in good condition and sought help at a nearby guard shack. Even- tually, police arrested the quarry owner’s son and his accomplices for their various roles in the kidnapping. While the Chowchilla incident is an
extreme case, it has never been repeated in the 40 years since it happened. It’s obvious to say, but school bus security has changed. “Time is of the essence in emergency situations,” said H. Kevin Mest, senior vice president of passenger service at Zonar. “Having the ability to communicate to your entire fleet quickly with specific instructions is critical.” According to Mest, while the ability to communicate has advanced by leaps and bounds, especially in real-time, broad- based communications that can help man- age emergency situations, there are school bus operations nationwide that still use
24 School Transportation News • JANUARY 2017
outdated technology, like radio commu- nication, which is prone to inaccuracy by limiting content.
“Communication becomes slow and information can get lost in the shuffle when numerous operators are talking over the radio and there is not a digital record of the information on a screen or otherwise,” he said. “If you have a large fleet, you are going to spend a lot of time on the radio trying to relay emergency related instruc- tions to your vehicle.” Without critical information delivered
by GPS and telematics, for instance, Mest said that when an emergency hits, “it’s like flying blind without it.” He added that in the current reality, transportation departments, along with the rest of the world, function in a connect- ed environment, and “that environment should extend to our children’s safe travel to and from school.” “With digital communications, a dispatcher can reach an entire fleet with clear, concise instructions with a touch of a button to let everyone know what is going on,” he said.
CELEBRATING 25 YEARS
Jan17_STN.indb 24
12/20/16 4:50 PM
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