BLACKSBURG, Va.  — With Virginia Tech Transportation Institute's Special Safety Concerns of School Bus Drivers Survey complete and the responses tallied, the final report is currently under review and will be available in early 2009. The survey, which included a total of 198 contributors, was performed in conjunction with the Transportation Research Board.

The recently-released preliminary results include a breakdown of data from the first five questions of the survey as well as a ranked list of 51 school bus safety concerns. The average experience of the 198 people who responded to the survey was 17 years with a median of a little more than 20,000 students in their school systems.

Many of the safety concerns listed in the survey will not surprise the school bus industry; drivers worried about illegal passing of stopped buses, dealing with inattentive or distracted drivers on the road and insufficient funding.

Some of the more specific concerned included accelerator and brake pedal design, rear bumper height, driver and monitor mental health, overly populate bus stops and safety belt use by school bus monitors.