Michael Levin-Epstein | Contributing Editor

To Fairfax County Public Schools transportation director Linda Farbry, loading and unloading children poses serious safety issues. That’s why she is hoping that the Virginia Board of Education will allow her school district to experiment with placing additional warning lights on the sides of its school buses.

If vehicles are going through intersections, she notes, they often are unaware of school buses that are loading or uploading students. Adding lights to the sides of buses should make drivers more aware of school buses, Farbry asserts.

Board of Education members are expected to consider Fairfax County’s request for a pilot project this Fall. The pilot project proposal calls for using a set of LED amber and red light modules (with three LEDs in each set) mounted above the entrance door and driver’s window. The lights would have a continuous power source from the traffic warning circuits using diodes to prevent feedback to each alternating current source. The lights can be integrated easily into an existing circuit “by drilling a couple of holes and running some wires,” Farbry explains.

While there would be an additional expense (perhaps several hundred dollars per bus), she says, “It’s worth trying.”

“We’re trying to communicate better with motorists and forestall problems,” she says. “We’re in a very heavily populated area and the traffic just gets worse, so we’re trying to be proactive.”

As far as Farbry knows, no other school district has adopted or even experimented with a similar system. And, she admits, other districts haven’t been all that positive about the idea. However, she says, if the pilot program is approved and turns out to be successful, other districts may suddenly become very interested. “You need somebody to step forward on these things,” Farbry says.

Supporters note that side-warning lights are used on other vehicles, such as fire engines, ambulances, police cars and tow trucks. A letter to the Virginia Board of Education urging approval of the pilot program comments that “although traffic from any direction is required by law to stop, none of the current warning lights is directed towards traffic approaching from either side.”

Several school transportation experts agree the idea is worth trying. Kathy Furneaux, executive director of the Pupil Transportation Safety Institute (PTSI) in Syracuse, N.Y., says Fairfax County’s “perception of the problem is correct.” As a former school bus driver herself, Furneaux recognizes the problem of motorists approaching an intersection and not realizing that bus is loading or unloading students. Furneaux has taken side-view pictures of buses for safety presentations to demonstrate that drivers approaching from the side may not see children boarding or exiting from the bus. If placing additional lights on the sides of buses alerts motorists to that situation, that would be beneficial, she comments.

“We would favor anything that enhances safety. Whatever improves communication with motorists is good,” Furneaux says.

But she also argues the school transportation industry needs to look at better education of the public regarding how to behave around school buses.

“We do a good job talking among ourselves,” she comments. But any safety initiative will be useful “only if it has meaning to Joe Blow when he’s passing by in his car,” Furneaux adds.

Strengthening prosecution of drivers who improperly pass buses, including eliminating plea bargains and dismissal of such citations, and working with school bus drivers on obtaining enough information “to make those tickets stick” are needed, she says.
Mike Martin, executive director of the National Association of Pupil Transportation, in Albany, N.Y., says the school district should be commended for its efforts. “Anything designed to improve safety, and to reduce incidents of illegal passing, is a good idea,” Martin comments. “It is pretty clear that we need something more than what we have to alert motorists. If something makes the bus more visible, I would say that’s worthwhile trying.”

Derek Graham, director of pupil transportation for North Carolina and NASDPTS president-elect, has received questions about cars approaching buses at intersections.
“It’s definitely something that happens and is a concern,” he says. North Carolina has yet to pilot the lights on the sides of buses, “so I’d say that’s definitely a new idea.”
However, he notes, the state has conducted projects involving side-mounted cameras to record illegal passing incidents, and has upgraded the red and amber warning lights on its buses to LED lights, in an attempt to make the vehicles more visible to motorists.

While New York City consultant Ned Einstein of Transportation Alternatives applauds the districts for its effort, he isn’t sure the approach will have its desired effect. Einstein questions whether adding lights on the sides of school buses will do anything to change motorists’ behavior around school buses, arguing that drivers now don’t understand what the existing lights mean, even though they’re able to see the devices. There is no uniformity in the lights required on school buses from state to state, he notes, and they vary in their requirements on how motorists are to respond and in how drivers are punished for violations.

Einstein advocates adding a green light to the school bus warning lights array, to turn the vehicles into a true “moving traffic signal.” Doing that, he says, and providing “walk-don’t walk” signals visible to students, could significantly increase safety.

“The biggest problem is that no one recognizes that there is a problem,” he says, adding that he hopes to see the proposed pilot study proceed. “I’m glad they’re doing and we could get some valuable data.”

Source: School Transportation News, October 2006. All rights reserved.