Independent Research Highlights Challenges to the National Loading and Unloading Survey

A year-long School Transportation News study of national and local newspaper headlines found 21 incidents where school bus riders were killed outside the school bus, 14 more than the seven reported in the 2006-2007 National School Bus Loading and Unloading Survey.

This does not mean that the National School Bus Loading and Unloading Survey is less valuable or that school buses are less safe. While the industry takes each fatality seriously, these numbers are dwarfed by the 3,500 pedestrians the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported killed by passenger cars and light trucks in 2006. But STN’s study highlights how a lack of a standard fatality definition for school bus stops and diverse, potentially unreliable, data sources can stymie state directors’ best efforts to report the risks of yellow school buses.

What is a “Loading and Unloading” Fatality?
One of the greatest challenges to the national survey is the lack of a single definition for what constitutes a student loading or unloading fatality.

Rather than prescribe what scenarios should be included, Larry Bluthardt, Kansas’ director of pupil transportation and the man responsible for administering the survey, leaves this decision to each of the state directors of pupil transportation who participate.

By contrast, STN collects its data by searching Google News for school transportation-related phrases in 4,500 national and regional newspapers and news Web sites, supplementing these searches with the newspaper archive LexisNexus. The method gathers a breadth of stories, but it is unscientific and relies on other new sources, and STN editors to determine which of these are and are not loading or unloading fatalities.

Some states, such as North Carolina, Indiana and Oklahoma, essentially define these as occurring only when students are actively involved in boarding or alighting their school buses. By contrast, Kansas defines them more broadly, as it includes students killed while walking to and from the school bus stop. Illinois goes yet further, including both those walking to and from the stop as well as those waiting for the bus.

In this year’s national survey, the school bus was present when all of the fatalities occurred. But, it is not clear that this is all the survey intends to include. For the last 10 years, categories for students killed while waiting at the bus stop and for those walking to and from the bus stop have been listed in the survey’s “Place Pupil Was Killed” section.

Without a uniform definition, some states may appear to have greater incidences of fatalities because they define the fatalities more broadly. For example, incidents where students were killed while waiting for, walking to or walking from the school bus stop, might be found in STN’s survey but not in the Loading and Unloading Survey. This data might have been included had these states defined unloading and loading fatalities more broadly.

After discussing some of the challenges surrounding the survey, Bluthardt said he may look to the board of the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation for direction. NASDPTS President Derek Graham said he thinks that’s a good idea.But it may not be easy.

John Green, California’s state director, pointed out that even the location where virtually everyone agrees fatalities should be counted — the “Danger Zone” — lacks a standard definition. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration defines this as a 10-foot area surrounding the school bus. The National Congress on School Transportation, by contrast, recommends a 12-foot radius.

Even if NASDPTS agreed to a standard definition of a loading and unloading fatality, Green pointed out challenges would persist.

For example, NASDPTS could agree on a definition that was broader than the definition used by the California Highway Patrol, the agency from which he collected his data. Green said those fatalities that were included in the national definition but not in the highway patrol definition would go unreported in the Loading and Unloading Survey because he would have no means of knowing when and where they happened.

Data Collection Challenges
While Bluthardt can rely on most state directors to submit their data — all but one did this year — there is no guarantee the data is complete. STN found three incidents where children were killed by their own bus — incidences that many state directors indicate should be included — that went unreported in the survey. This may be due to the fact that each state has its own means of collecting data.

Where one state director gets information from the department of transportation, another gets data from the department of education. Still others tap the resources of the state police, One state director said he submits from memory and historically some have relied on local newspapers.

Each of these has its own challenges.

One state director reported difficulty in consistently receiving complete data from a state agency in recent years. In another state, the most recent crash data available is a full calendar year behind the reporting year for the survey. Consequently, a state director may not have the information needed until the following year. Collecting data internally is no less flawless.

In one state that sends an online survey to all districts, an incident where a student rider was struck and killed by his school bus went unreported for unknown reasons, despite the fact that the state director said he vividly remembered the incident. An official in another state that also asks districts to report relayed “startling” inconsistencies between what the districts and the police file.

Improving crash reporting procedures has been on the industry’s radar for at least 22 years. An attempt to create a uniform crash reporting procedure floundered at the 1985 National Minimum Standards Conference in Missouri. While some states supported the idea, the majority did not, reportedly due to resistance from police agencies that did not want to change their reporting system for a handful of school bus related fatalities.

The value of the survey as a trend gauge and tool for planning is clear. During their meeting in Grand Rapids, Mich., NASDPTS officially recognized Bluthardt and the survey.

But how to improve the survey is less clear. For his part, Bluthardt wants to do anything he can to make the survey more accurate.

“We’re certainly not wanting to add to our numbers,” he said. “But we want to make the statistics as true as we can.”

Reprinted from the January 2008 issue of School Transportation News magazine. All rights reserved.