A spokesman for Sen. Charles E. Schumer, one of the legislators responsible for introducing the bill, confirmed that the bill would affect all school bus drivers.

The Avoiding Life-Endangering and Reckless Texting by Drivers Act, or the ALERT Drivers Act, would ban all motorists from texting amid recent high-profile crashes involving commuter trains. In September 2008, the worst train crash in 15 years took place in Los Angeles when a train conductor receiving and sending text messages went through a red light and collided with a freight train, killing 25 people and injuring 135. In May 2009, an MBTA trolley in Boston ran a red light and crashed into another trolley. The conductor admitted to texting when the accident took place. Forty-nine people were injured.

Earlier this year, a San Antonio bus driver was caught on video driving through rush hour traffic while texting on his cell phone. The bus later crashed into an SUV.

The ALERT Act, introduced by Sens. Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Kay Hagan (D-NNC), came a day after the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute published a study that found that operators of motor vehicles had a collision risk 23 times greater when they were texting than when they were not texting. Another study by the University of Utah found that college students using a driving simulator were eight times more likely to have an accident when texting.

The American Medical Association recently identified cell phone texting while driving as a public health risk. It cited another study that found that texting while operating a vehicle causes a 400 percent increase in time spent with a driver’s eyes distracted from the roadway.