Pediatricians Revise School
Transportation Safety Policy

Dr. Linda F. Bluth
Assistant Superintendent Compliance
Baltimore City Public Schools

The American Academy of Pediatrics Committees on School Health and Injury and Poison Prevention has revised its 1985 statement entitled "School Bus Safety." In a recent issue of the AAP's professional journal Pediatrics (May, 1996), the Academy published an updated article titled School Transportation Safety which provides relevant federal regulations, and outlines recommendations for addressing school bus safety. The AAP emphasized the importance of Academies' role in sharing recommendations at both the community, state and national levels.

This article highlights statistical information about the 400,000 school buses used to transport 25 million children daily, nearly 4 billion miles to and from school and school activities annually.

In the past year, the media has presented multiple segments to the public on school bus tragedies. The Academy's policy statement: "Expectations for school bus safety should be upheld not as a result of public reactions, but from an ongoing commitment from communities and states to assuring the safest ride possible for children on school buses," speaks for itself.

The AAP delineated nine recommendations. These recommendations include: (1) The use of child safety seats and other restraint systems on school buses for preschool children, and for children with special needs and evaluation of individual needs to determine the most appropriate restraint systems, (2) The support of the National Transportation Safety Board recommendations that seat backs be slightly more than 26 inches from the seat surface, (3) The installation of seat belts on all newly purchased school buses and appropriate training on their use, (4) The addition of equipment including eight warning and loading lights, stop signal arms, and cross-view mirror system, school district consideration for installing strobe lights for use during reduced-visibility conditions, and external loudspeaker system to enable the driver to communicate with children outside of the bus, and loading and backing alarms or pulsating backup horns, school buses.

The AAP also recommends: (5) the installation of brake retarder systems on all school buses, (6) Mandatory state school bus inspections, (7) Detailed, unexpected, random school bus inspections in addition to regular annual school bus inspections by an independent agency, (8) Compliance of all school buses with all federal regulations, and pre-1977 buses be retired from use, and (9) Adoption of the requirements for the use of wheelchairs on school buses outlined in the 1995 National Standards for School Buses.

The AAP briefly addressed requirements for school bus driver selection and training, school bus passenger instruction, school bus routes and stops.

The Academy encourages the 50,000 pediatricians in the United States to become actively involved in school transportation as child safety advocates. AAP addresses participation at the community, state and national level.

At the community level, it was recommended that pediatricians help develop local training programs for bus drivers, participate in planning and arranging for the delivery of local training for bus drivers relating to child development and behavior, child safety seat use and positioning needs and safety belt use, as well as developing test materials to evaluate driver competency in these areas.

At the state level, one of the recommendations is for pediatricians to serve as consultants to state departments of education in the training of bus drivers in areas relating to child passenger safety and child development and behavior.

At the national level, the AAP recommended research toward understanding how child restraint systems perform under dynamic conditions when secured on the school bus seat.

As an administrator responsible for special education compliance for students with disabilities this article convincingly presents the pediatrician as a strong resource to the education community. Across the nation transportation personnel are struggling with transportation issues regarding restraint systems and behavior problems. The pediatrician is a welcomed partner to assist with passenger safety. It is the school district's challenge to use this invaluable resource. School districts across the nation are becoming more sophisticated and aware of the importance in forming partnerships. Transportation of children on school buses is a daily activity that requires a strong coalition to provide for passenger safety.

Linda Bluth is the Assistant Superintendent of Compliance, Baltimore City Schools. She is a regular contributor to STN.

Source: Reprinted from School Transportation News, July 1997. All rights reserved.