By
Dr. Cal LeMon
The
1999 Report Card on School Bus Safety in the U.S. has been provided
to clarify and encourage the safest form of ground transportation
in the Unites States, the yellow school bus. Data is presented
on a state by state basis.
| |
School
buses provide 10
billion student rides annually for our greatest national
resource, our children. These data are derived from the
approximately 55% of America's 24-million children of K-12
age who use the yellow school bus for the school journey.
The remainder, approximately 45%, travel by automobile,
bycyle, walk, or use public transit. |
This Report
Card offers information about fatality rates to school-age children.
It compares the number of fatalities to children in yellow school
buses with the number of fatalities to children in automobiles
during the twice daily journey to-and-from-school. Data in the
1999 Report Card is presented for the 1996-97 school year.
| What
the Report Card shows is that about 600 school-age
children are killed annually in non-school bus motor
vehicles -- typically the family car with mom at the wheel
-- during school hours and during the school week to and
from school. By comparison, approximately 15 school age
children are killed annually while riding in yellow school
buses. |
|
"Tragically,
about 600 school age
children are killed every year in passenger
vehicles during regular, weekday school hours."
|
|
Every effort
was made to accurately represent information for each state.
This report is not structured to rate states or pick winners
and losers. It was prepared to provide information to parents
and educators so they can measure how their state compares with
others and, most importantly, encourage funding and policy decisions
that will result in more students traveling to school in the
safest form of transportation -- the big yellow school bus,
which is 60 times safer (according to FARS data enclosed in
this report) than riding in a car.
Information
for this report comes from several government highway safety
sources.
To proceed,
click on the state you are looking for:
