Yesterday on the news, they were talking about a new law requiring seat belts on small school buses. What about regular school buses? When I have bus duty at school I watch children crowd onto school buses. Children who are playing, talking and who are not thinking one bit about safety. School buses are one of the most blatantly dangerous forms of transportation in today’s world. We mandate seat belt use in all forms of transportation except school buses - buses that carry our most precious cargo. I am afraid it will take some tragic accidents before people will stop ignoring the facts.
Here are the facts:
(1) School buses often contain up to sixty (or more) children.
(2) Typically, the school bus driver is the ONLY adult on the bus.
(3) So you have a crowded vehicle with sixty children, an adult who is torn between trying to drive safely while supervising more children than two classrooms at the same time.
It is a recipe for disaster. I think laws about school buses (all-ways stop whenever a school bus is picking up or dropping off children, etc.) are the only things that have kept more tragedies from happening.
Every school bus should have an adult monitor in addition to the school bus driver. Every child should have a seat belt, and the adult monitor should make sure that the seat belts remain fastened throughout the trip.
We’re ignoring basic safety measures by not having seat belts and adult monitors on school buses. It’s just common sense.
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November 22nd, 2007 at 7:57 am
You are in over 15 times more danger driving in your car than you are driving in a school bus.
Seat belts are a good theory, but in school busses they would probably cause more deaths than they prevented. Search seat belts on my site and you will see some research on this topic.
They don’t pay drivers enough, (I make $10.50 per route of 73 kids.) and it isn’t even remotely possible that they would pay this “monitor” enough either. If they did, it would make me upset enough to not be a driver anymore…not that the low pay is going to keep me a driver though after my divorce here.
TMS: The point is that the driver and the monitor should be well paid. We are putting the driver in an impossible situation. The only reason that people are in more danger in their car than in a school bus is because of the laws about school buses and because of the limited distances and roads that school buses travel. By the way - good luck with the divorce. I’ve been there/done that, and it’s not a good experience. I’ll say a prayer for you.
November 23rd, 2007 at 10:22 am
I don’t think you are right on the laws. I think it does have something to do with all the training that bus drivers get, but there aren’t many laws here that limit bus travel.PA actual tracks how many students are in accidents and die on the way to school. I think the number for 2005 are something like 3 students died in school bus accidents with 2 of those 3 being run over, so not actually in the bus. The external elements are by far my biggest fear as far as child safety. That same year like 15 fatalities happened in cars. This is just off the top of my head though, not going to research this all again. It is very convincing when you do the research though. My divorce is cool. It is pretty much over with, the only casualty is that I am pretty broke because I kept the house and the house payment. Have a great day.