Transportation Employees Look in the
Mirror and Make a Difference

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. - Seeing is believing in the Gwinnett County Public Schools transportation department, thanks to bus driver David Hart and training specialist Charlene Majors.

The two developed a new district testing tool, the Hart-Majors Mirror Grid, that gauges the compliance of 1,200 school bus drivers driving 1,600 buses with FMSS 111, the federal standard specifying requirements for the performance and location of inside and outside rearview mirrors on motor vehicles.

The duo was recognized at the 2004 NAPT Awards Banquet in Cincinnati last November with the inaugural Mirror Lite Safety Cross Award, which recognizes an unparalleled vision or action in support of the safer transportation of students .

Cross-view mirrors are required so drivers can see specific areas to the ground 12 feet in front of and alongside the bus and 200 feet to the rear. The purpose of this standard is to reduce the number of deaths and injuries that occur when the driver does not have a clear and reasonably unobstructed view. Each year, Penny Macenczak, staff development instructor and driver trainer, faced down issues on how to quickly and easily test Gwinnett County mirrors.

She would place nine cones in front of the bus and seven on the sides to serve as visual aides to drivers during training. But setting up the cones, and measuring their exact location, was less than efficient. A transportation consultant came to speak to transportation department employees specifically about FMVSS 111, and Majors began thinking there had to be an easier way.

"Our problem, because we are so spread out countywide, how do you provide means for checking that all drivers can check their mirrors?" said Majors, who is also a member of a four-person school district accident investigation team. "The concept of this system is that you have it set up where real vision and reflective vision are working together."

She said that during accident investigations, she was shocked at how many times drivers were at fault because of failure to comply with FMVSS 111. The eighth-largest school district in the nation, Gwinnett County buses 92,000 of its 135,000 total student population twice each school day over 19 million miles a year.

"We'd say, 'no wonder, you're mirrors aren't adjusted correctly,'" she recalled. The thing we've tried to impress on our drivers, if you're involved in an accident where there's an injury or fatality and your mirrors are pointed to the sky, they're going to clean your clock."

With the support of Macenczak and Transportation Director Grant Repport, Majors and Hart set out to ease the training process by developing a system that was easy to set up and store. Hart said pavement markings failed because of the sheer number of bus yards in the 437-square mile county in northeast Georgia and the fact not all parking lots are paved. And an idea to layout Frisbees around the school bus was impractical.

"We wanted something strapped together and mobile," said Hart, the engineering mastermind.

So he, the product development engineer, followed up on an idea that would use 16 six-inch high soccer cones. After building a wooden jig to mark where the cones needed to be, he drilled holes in the four corners at the base and connected them with one-and-a-quarter inch-wide vinyl cord and weighted the cones with brass hinges.

Each strapping had two cones so they could be placed in the exact spot they needed to be around the bus.

Three cones are placed underneath front bumper, one in front of each front tire and one in alongside the bus at the middle of the body. From there, at a distance of six feet away, three more cones are placed at a right angle fro the front bumper. Twelve feet in front of bumper, three more cones form parallel lines.

"From the crossover mirror, the driver must see all nine cones that represent children," Hart said. "Two cones near the tires could be a child who got off the bus and dropped a school pack. The driver must be able to see along the bus at ground level all the way to the back of the bus using the cross mirrors or post mirrors."

At the rear of the bus at right angles are three more cones set at distances of one, six and 12 feet from the back tires, similar to the placement up front. The Left rear tire represents the roadside, Hart said, and is marked by cones placed at one and six feet increments. Behind the bus, 200 feet back, two more cones are placed on a line that runs to the center of each rear wheel. Those stand-alone cones are "walked out" with a pedometer.

So far, Hart and Majors have built 15 sets, with another 32 on the way for zone supervisors to carry with them to different sites.

"They can keep a box of these in the trunk of their car so, if a bus has a problem or a mirror gets knocked in a bus lane or in the parking lot, they can use the cones," Hart said. "You just need 12 feet around the bus."

Majors said a patent is pending, and the department has plans to make it available nationwide. But first a revision is being worked on that would include a carrying pouch. She encouraged anyone interested on learning more about the Hart-Major Grid System to contact the transportation department at 770/338-4800.