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Fire detection tubing in the battery compartment of a Kanawha County school bus.
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systems. The course includes all types of buses, but emphasizes special needs evacuations. “You’d be surprised by how many people do not know how many exits
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there are on a school bus and how they operate,” Smith said. “I teach about the different classes of buses, what the federal standards are for emergen- cy exits and how they operate. I teach the federal standards, which are the minimum. Some states are stricter, in some instances.” Smith said his eyes were opened when he attended an eight-hour
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National Highway Traffic Safety Administration CSRS on school buses seminar at the TSD Conference. “I learned there are techniques for remov- ing students from a bus that I had never been taught as a professional in the industry,” Smith said. Smith noted that, “The biggest key is getting the kids off the bus when
you have a five-point harness. A school bus is eight-feet wide. If a bus is laying on its side, there is a child eight feet in the air and another is on the bottom. Who do you remove first, and is it a one or two-person job? All manufacturers have instructions on where to cut a device to remove a student in an emergency. I’ve gathered all of that information and include it in my training class.” Smith said he’s looked at fire suppression systems, but his fleet has yet to
purchase any. “The main reason is cost,” he said. “It is sad to look at life this way, but everything comes down to budget.” The Pupil Transportation Safety Institute conducts workshops on
emergency evacuation of special needs students and preschoolers. PTSI Ex- ecutive Director Kathy Furneaux said time is critical, especially when you’re evacuating a bus carrying students with disabilities, and who have mobility or comprehension issues. “Those two conditions become major hurdles in the swift evacuation of a special needs school bus,” Furneaux said, adding that in many cases, the driver is the only adult on the bus. “We’ve seen how quickly buses burn,” Furneaux said. “Within one minute
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See Us At Booth # 520 40 School Transportation News • MARCH 2019
we’ve seen thick smoke inside the bus, and within two minutes buses are fully involved in flames, so you have maybe a minute and a half to get the kids off the bus. I think anything that slows the progression of a fire on a school bus is a good thing, even if it bought the driver an additional 30 seconds to get students off the bus.” Furneaux said the decision to evacuate is up to the bus driver and warned against relying too much on the fire suppression technology. “The decision
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