PUBLISHER’S CORNER Bold Predictions WRITTEN BY TONY CORPIN |
TONY@STNONLINE.COM T
he morning I wrote this I was listening to the Dan Patrick sports show on 570AM in Los Angeles. Te question of the moment: Who do you think is going to win Super Bowl
LII? Te New England Patriots were not surpisingly the favored pick. But Las Vegas bookies also had the Oakland Raiders highly favored by a margin of two to one over the next closest team. Why the bold prediction? Seguing from football to student transportation, one
bold prediction I’ll make heading into the fall is that motorists won’t stop passing school buses illegally, no matter what obstacles are in their path. You think more fines, laws, stop-arm cameras or any other deterrent would cease this behavior. But it’s unlikely, not without major resources driving a public awareness campaign. Who would admit wanting to hurt, or worse, kill
a kid by ignoring a stopped school bus? But that’s exactly the risky behavior motorists engage in with each blow-by. Public awareness is really the key to addressing behavioral issues. So who is responsible for communicating this topic with the public? States? Counties? Cities? School districts? Law enforcement? If not, who? Te National Highway Traffic Safety Administration formed a partnership in December with NAPT, NASDPTS and NSTA to develop a nationwide public awareness campaign explaining the dangers of not stopping for school buses. But will this awareness campaign truly have any impact on driving behavior? According to a recent NASDPTS study, over a fifth of the nation’s school bus drivers participating in a one-day count earlier this year reported nearly 78,000 incidents of motorists illegally passing stopped school buses. Tis, extrapolated by NASDPTS, equates to 14 million violations nationwide over a 180-day school year. However, despite the ongoing safety campaigns, media
coverage and enhanced state laws targeting illegal passers, observations by school bus drivers in 29 states and Washington, D.C., remained consistent with every other NASDPTS survey conducted over the past seven years. How is it that there has not been a discernible decrease in motorists’ risky behavior around school bus stops? And how does the industry solve the problem?
58 School Transportation News • SEPTEMBER 2017 Increasing publicity around the issue might not be
enough. Take for example texting while driving. Have you, dear reader, ever done this? No one likes to admit it, but at one point or another most of us are guilty. One of the largest current public awareness campaigns around safe driving is, “Don’t Text & Drive.” It is broadly publicized yet people still text and drive. Why? Immediate self-gratification? Tey feel like it’s not hurting anyone? According to
www.donttextdrive.com, you’re 23 times more likely to have a car crash if you’re navigating through your text messages while on the road. Most people don’t set out to harm others or break
the law. But it happens, intentionally or otherwise, often based on a lack of judgement. Last month, I witnessed a lady texting and driving. She was looking down at her phone making a right turn with her eyes off the road. She could have caused an accident or hurt someone. Luckily, she didn’t. Her bad behavior had the potential to affect other pedestrians or drivers. Does that mean she should keep doing it since nothing happened this time? Another bold prediction is that, if she keeps engaging in this unsafe behavior, she’ll eventually cause something bad to happen. Tat’s the statistical truth. Nothing is going to change unless the school transportation community goes all in to make people aware of these dangerous behaviors. I recently shared a Facebook video within my network that depicted a compilation of dangerous driving incidents around the school bus. At the time, it had gone viral with over 24 million views and counting. If you see this shocking video, you’ll know why. It’s a step in the right direction. Te issue of illegal school bus passing needs the kind
of awareness other campaigns have received, and then some. Look to those examples to guide our path toward changing this potentially deadly behavior.
Tony Corpin, Publisher
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