NTSB Fatality Report
Critical of Public Transit
"Tripper Service"

(Webmaster note: This article appeared in the January,
1998 edition of School Transportation News)

The 12-page NTSB report is one of the smallest it ever issued about a school bus fatality. None-the-less, some observers think it is one of the most significant statements on behalf of school bus safety ever issued by the federal safety board

The accident occured on Nov. 26, 1996 when the 10-year old child departed a Gray's Harbor Transit bus. The child walked to the rar of the bus and ran out from behind the bus in front of an oncoming utility truck. The child ran out from behind the bus and was struck by the truck. The child received fatal injuries on impact.

This accident, and the subsequent NTSB analysis, offers a rare glimpse into the disparity between the safety afforded children transported on school buses vs. the safety of children being transported on public transit buses. The NTSB in searing language contrasted the operational practices and equipment differences between the two modes of transportation.

In its report, the NTSB notes that regulations forbidding tripper service "are aimed at preventing unfair competition, not at keeping young people from riding on regularly scheduled transit bus-especially if that route happens to be headed where they want to go." It notes that school buses are subject to a variety of federal and state regulations designed to protect the occupants, that school buses are clearly distinguishable vehicles equipped with special safety features, and that motorists are required in all states to stop while children enter or leave a stopped school bus. No such requirements are imposed on public transit buses, according to the report.

Although Gray's harbor Transit had written ridership rules for its transit buses, the rules specifically excuse the bus driver from any responsibility for passenger safety. "Drivers are not responsible for passengers once they leave the bus," according to number 11 of Gray's ridership rules. The report notes, however, that children are not tested in the practice of their knowledge of the rules. Thus children riding public transit buses are responsible for their own safety in contrast to the school bus practice of school bus driver responsibility for their safety, even as pedestrian's boarding and exiting the bus.

The report also notes the absence of accident data involving school children riding on transit buses. Utilizing data provided by the American Public Transit Association, NTSB estimates that approximately 15 percent of all pupil transportation is accomplished through public transit services.

NTSB found that existing federal regulations are designed to afford school children "the highest level of safety while being transported to and from school." It said if safety practices similar to those for school buses had been in place, "the fatality in this accident may not have occurred. It stated unequivocally, "Transit buses do not provide an equivalent level of operational safety when transporting school children."

The NTSB also found it is difficult to assist the safety risks associated with transporting children on transit buses to and from school due to the lack of existing data concerning accidents involving transit buses.

The board made recommendations to four entities: the U.S. Dept. Of Transportation, the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services, the American Public Transit Service, and the Community Transportaiotn Association of America. It urged the four groups to work together "to collect accident data involving school children riding on transit buses...to ensure that school children riding on transit buses in tripper service are afforded an equivalent level of operational safety as school children riding on school buses."

Copies of the report-"Collision with a Pedestrian by a Utility Truck near Cosmopolis, Washington, Nov. 26, 1996"-can be obtained from the NTSB or the National Technical Information Service.