Archives for School Transportation News

The provision of school bus transportation is predicated on the notion that, below age 13, individuals do not fully possess the skills needed to cross streets and negotiate intersections. But this difficulty is further compounded by certain nuances of bus movement that few full-grown adults recognize, much less understand: When the light turned green, a bicyclist watched a school bus pull forward into the intersection. Just before the bus’ front cap reached the halfway point – from which the driver would then have turned sharply to the right – the bicyclist assumed that the vehicle would be traveling straight through

As our economy has continued to shrink, my admiration for most pupil transportation Directors has grown immensely. In 1992, when I could no longer obtain the contract terms that allowed me to run a large paratransit operation at a level of efficiency and virtuosity frankly unthinkable of today, I walked away from a lucrative five-year contract renewal to do other things. But nearly 20 years later, few Transportation Directors in any mode, in either the public or private sector, have the choices to simply walk away that I did. Since then, working largely as a safety and efficiency expert, I

For those of you who, unlike myself, spend 100% of your professional life in the school bus community, you may be unaware of the emergence of crossover mirrors and compartmentalized seating in the transit and motorcoach industries, respectively. But emerge they have. Frankly, more primitive versions of both technologies have been around for awhile. But the newest versions of both technologies are far superior, and their increased usage is likely to spread far more rapidly, particularly in our litigious society. Superior Innovation, Spreading Ideas Our community has known for decades of those features of our vehicles that are genuinely superior

If nothing else is clear from the exhaustive evidence presented in the six previous installments, it is that the state-to-state variation in crossing procedures represents a mind–boggling labyrinth of confusion to motorists. That this confusion leads to crossing mayhem should be understandable. Frankly, to expect motorists to absorb, much less respond to, the nuances of each state’s crossing policies and procedures is neither fair nor reasonable. In stating this, I am not remotely condoning or excusing pass bys. Yet the author of the study from which I obtained much of this information is far more sympathetic toward such motorists than

While the differences between amber engagement, retrofit requirements and passing rules are, by themselves, dizzying enough, their overlapping and exacerbating complexities are compounded further still by a plethora of exceptions in many states which allow their passing rules to be legally ignored. This discussion does not include the typical and nearly-universal rule that an oncoming vehicle approaching a school bus along a four–lane or greater roadway separated by a median strip or barrier need not stop for a school bus with its flashers engaged on the opposite side of the roadway. However, as noted, differences in wording of regulations in

Mirroring the myriad of twists and quirks in the installation, retrofit and engagement of crossing control devices, there are even more quirks in the regulations requiring motorists approaching these vehicles to stop for them – with or without their crossing equipment engaged. As examples: In a few states (e.g., Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee), motorists must also stop for a church bus engaging a signal (signifying loading or unloading). And in Tennessee they must also stop for youth buses. In North Carolina, motorists must stop similarly for vehicles transporting senior citizens – nomenclature that suggests how long ago such a regulation

Unlike certain benchmark changes in school bus design (like seat compartmentalization that followed on the heels of catastrophic crashes), the evolution of emergency flashers evolved slowly from data – most of it suppressed by the failure to tabulate and publicize the number of crossing fatalities not involving the victim’s collision with the school bus itself. With this piecemeal accumulation of only a small fraction of the actual carnage brought to our community’s attention, improvements in flashers thus limped along, state by state, often decades apart, stimulated periodically by federal mandates for improved equipment on all new buses, and retrofit provisions

Unlike certain benchmark changes in schoolbus design (like seat compartmentalization that followed on the heels of catastrophic crashes), the evolution of emergency flashers evolved slowly from data – most of it suppressed by the failure to tabulate and publicize the number of crossing fatalities not involving the victim’s collision with the schoolbus itself. With this piecemeal accumulation of only a small fraction of the actual carnage brought to our community’s attention, improvements in flashers thus limped along, state by state, often decades apart, stimulated periodically by federal mandates for improved equipment on all new buses, and retrofit provisions required by

As the first follow-up to the Introduction to this series of installments, the reader may be surprised to find liability included, much less the “lead-off” topic. But this is because differences in liability have profound impacts on an enormous range of differences in vehicle requirements and specifications, policies and procedures, tendencies to retrofit safety devices, and even the conformity with what many believe to be universal crossing practices – such as students crossing in front of the bus. Sadly, as we will see, our nation is splattered with examples where safety has been deliberately compromised by efforts to reduce liability