Preventing a Deadly Chase

David Wegbreit | Assistant Editor

Nearly as many students were killed in 2005 chasing down buses along the driver’s side while the bus made a right-hand turn as were killed in onboard accidents, according to a study conducted by School Transportation News. Experts suggest future deaths might be prevented through the combined efforts of school districts, drivers and parents.

Of the 28 total school bus rider fatalities in calendar year 2005 tracked by STN, five were killed as a result of collisions and four were run over while chasing down a bus they had missed. While there were no similar fatalities in 2006, deaths resulting from students chasing down buses have regularly been reported in the Kansas Department of Education annual loading and unloading survey since 1970.

In speaking with STN, one expert suggested these accidents may occur because students miscalculate the turning pattern of buses. Unlike more familiar passenger cars and trucks, school buses must drive through most of an intersection before the rear of the bus pivots to complete the turn. To a student unfamiliar with school buses, it can appear as if the bus is proceeding straight ahead until it is too late.

However, Dick Fischer, a transportation consultant and expert witness, attributes many of these deaths to school bus stops located too close to street corners. Fischer suggested drivers are preoccupied with students who are loading — not with students who fail to get to bus stop on time. When drivers pull away from the stop they are most focused on looking forward, checking right-hand mirrors and preparing to turn.
Moving the stops to the middle of blocks would give drivers a greater opportunity to check all mirrors and look out for students who might be approaching the bus improperly.

South Carolina is one of the few states to have guidelines describing where school bus stops should be placed. According to its routing manual, no school bus stop may be placed within 100 feet of a street corner. The state is also one of the few to regularly review routing and stop placement.

However, industry experts warn that mid-block bus stops make sense only in residential neighborhoods with low posted speed limits. Changing school bus locations in high-traffic, high-speed areas could increase the number of passing motorist fatalities, as was found in a 2006 study on pedestrian safety by the Center for Urban Transportation Research. Nonetheless, experts agree that transportation providers must carefully monitor their stops to make sure they are in the safest and simplest locations.

Neither Florida, Virginia nor Wisconsin — the three states in which the four chasing fatalities in 2005 occurred — nor the four school districts in which the accidents occurred has a set of guidelines for school bus stop placement. And while the National Safety Council has made recommendations on school bus stop safety at right-hand turns, there are no federal guidelines on school bus stop placement.

Mike Martin, executive director for NAPT and one of the authors of the National Safety Council guidelines, suggests this authority should rest with local municipalities, as they are best equipped to determine the safety measures for their distinct environments. He also suggested there should be a focus on building relationships between drivers, riders and parents.

Donald Tudor, director of the Office of Transportation for South Carolina’s Department of Education, noted that loading fatalities tend to happen more frequently when substitute drivers are driving. These drivers, he said, oftentimes lack the special relationships with their riders, and so they do not know who needs to cross and who tends to show up late for the bus.

Still, most experts suggest bus drivers alone cannot make school buses safer. Districts, students and parents must also come together to insure students learn to be the safest riders they can be. Teaching riders more about safe riding, and reminding them more frequently, could prevent these accidents.

Just as there are no federal recommendations and few state guidelines for school bus stop placement, there are few mandates for school bus rider training. Of course, most districts provide some form of rider training. However, Martin said that creating a uniform, formalized rider training program and expanding current rider training to include a driver/student/parent component might help in reducing fatalities.
Martin suggested rider training verification could realistically become a part of the student contracts that many students must bring home and have signed during the first week of school.

Fred Rankin, the transportation director for Culpeper, Va. Public Schools, where a 10-year-old girl was killed in 2005, says his district currently brings parents into the education process. While the district is not mandated to do so by the state, parents of children who will ride on the school bus learn about school bus safety during pre-registration the week before classes start. He stressed the role that parents can play in keeping children safe.

“Parents should remember that missing the school bus is better than missing your child,” he said.

Editor’s Note — Based on a search of Lexis-Nexis database of newspaper articles published between Jan. 1, 2005 and Dec. 24, 2006. To best assess the risks associated with pupil transportation, the survey included onboard student deaths as well as loading and unloading fatalities. The study also included fatalities occurring on the way to or from a school bus stop, but did not include the deaths of school bus drivers, non-rider pedestrians or motorists in other vehicles.