"I would have liked to have seen Montana," uttered a dying Capt. Borodin to Marko Ramius in the 1990 movie based on the Tom Clancy novel "The Hunt for Red October." Many school bus officials and friends are wondering aloud when they'll see a School Bus Safety Week Resolution from the U.S. House of Representatives.
Such proclamations carry no binding, legislative action but they are viewed as a political win for an industry that continues to grasp for any type of official federal recognition it can muster. The National Academy of Sciences and NHTSA both agree that school buses are the safest mode of ground transportation available to students on their way to and from class, but that hasn't translated into much federal funding beyond applicability for EPA clean diesel grants and Department of Energy Clean Cities alternative fuel awards.
So the industry clings to the bastion of School Bus Safety Week to remind politicians and the public of the safety, convenience and traffic congestion reducing benefits of the yellow bus. There have been many such proclamations over the year, starting in 1970 at the request of Dick Fischer, then a California transportation director and now a consultant and STN EXPO presenter. But, each year, a new resolution must be passed by Congress.
Twenty-five signatures are needed to bring the vote to the House floor, which means a letter must be drafted and circulated long before the industry holds national School Bus Safety Week during the third week of October. NAPT now administers the celebration, and Fischer and others have been working with the association and with House staffers to get a similar letter going this year.
The latest news is that the House will use an old resolution to get the ball rolling, likely to happen during August recess. Here's hoping that, amid immigration reform, the economy, ongoing battles over health care and the upcoming mid-term elections, that congressional representatives will do the right thing and recognize school bus transportation and the children it serves.
More so, what will the industry do with such a resolution once it is passed? Surely a House proclamation can go far in helping the American School Bus Council's voice as the advocate for student safety, and this can trickle down to the state and local school district levels. ASBC won a victory earlier this year when Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood sent a letter to Congress to inform them that existing NHTSA funds would be set aside for a national public awareness campaign as far as the safety, efficiency and environmental benefits of school buses are concerned.
Here's to "hope" that another victory is won this fall.