A Comprehensive Guide to School Bus Safety
If you know anything about Rohrer Bus, you know that our #1 priority is School Bus Safety. We feel that not enough people know the ins and outs of School Bus Safety; schoolkids are put in dangerous situations every day, all of which can be avoided. If there’s ANYTHING you think you’re unsure about under the broad topic of School Bus Safety, you’ve come to the right place! We’ve split this comprehensive guide into five sections:
…. So if any of these topics particularly interest you, you can head straight there!
Distracted Driving
Driving while distracted is not only dangerous for the individuals doing it, but subsequently for everybody else on or near the roads. Distracted driving is a topic in and of itself, but it becomes a topic of School Bus Safety when it compromises the safety of students. Distracted driving poses a hazard to many children around the times they commute to and get out of school, which also happen to be common work commuting times. Distracted drivers run the risk of passing stopped school buses or speeding in a school zone.
By definition, distracted driving is participating in any act that prevents you from just driving, therefore prevents you from driving to the best of your ability. There are three categories of distracted driving: Manual, which makes you take your hand(s) off the steering wheel, Visual, which makes you take your eyes off the road, and Cognitive, which makes you take your mind off the act of driving.
Visual and Cognitive distractions can cause drivers to overlook or ignore signs, like the school zone sign or a school bus’s stop arm, that are intended to keep children safe. Some of these distractions include, but are not limited to:
- Most obviously, texting on your cellphone
- Using the voice to text feature on a smartphone
- Taking pictures or videos while driving
- Reading ANYTHING (books, papers, emails, texts, social media, etc.)
- Talking to somebody on your cell phone while holding the phone up to your ear OR while they are on speakerphone
- Having an intense conversation with one of your passengers
- Fiddling with your car’s entertainment system
- Using voice commands to operate your car’s entertainment system
- Using a GPS system
- Looking at a map
- Adjusting mirrors while driving
- Listening and singing along to your music
- Fixing your hair
- Fixing your makeup
- Looking or reaching for items on the passenger seat/backseat/floor
- Driving while feeling strong emotions
- Gawking at wrecks or other road drama
Knowing the numerous activities that actually count as distracted driving is the first step to eliminating unsafe practices from our driving routines. Next time you get behind the wheel, take note of every time your eyes leave the road momentarily or your mind drifts off. What were you doing? Identify what activities cause you to drive distracted, and eliminate them to keep yourself and others safe!
Passing the Reds
“Passing the reds” is the act of driving past a stopped school bus that has its red lights flashing, stop arm extended, and is loading or unloading children. This is highly illegal because it endangers kids’ lives.
The legal implications of passing the reds, at least in the state of Pennsylvania, include all of the following:
- $250 fine
- 60-day driver’s license suspension
- 5 points on your driving record (the maximum amount of points given for any individual moving violation in the state of PA)
In a worst-case-scenario, if you pass the reds and hit a student, you’ll have to deal with numerous other legal repercussions, as well as immense guilt and sorrow after the incident.
Over 700 drivers annually in the state of PA get convicted of passing a stopped school bus, and many more are guilty, but never get caught or charged. We often wonder why people pass stopped school buses, and there could be several reasons why. Firstly, it could be due to the driver being distracted and simply missing the signals. It could also be that the driver simply does not care, but people with that lack of compassion come few and far between. Perhaps, the most likely reason why people pass the reds is that they don’t know when to stop, or they don’t know they have to stop at all. It goes without saying that it is very important to know when to stop:
- When a school bus turns on yellow flashing lights, it means they are preparing to come to a stop, so all other motorists should slow down.
- When following a school bus that switches on its red lights, you must stop behind it and not attempt to go around it.
- Even if you are on a road that has two or more lanes going in the same direction, if you are traveling in the same direction as a stopped bus, you must stop and not drive around it.
- When approaching in the other lane on the other side of the road, you must stop on
- roadways with ridged or grooved dividers
- When approaching in the other lane, you must stop on roadways with painted lines or dividers
- When approaching an intersection a bus is stopped at, ALL cars must stop regardless if it is an all-way stop or not.
Safety Outside the Bus
School bus safety extends way past what happens ON the bus. In fact, the majority of issues regarding school bus safety are caused by actions people, including students, parents, and drivers, take outside and around the bus.
The problems facing students include crossing the street to get to and from their bus (drivers sometimes pass stopped school buses due to distraction or negligence), getting out of sight of their driver, or being confronted by strangers at their bus stop. There are several things students can do to ensure their safety around the school bus:
- Don’t run outside the bus
- Stay out of the Danger Zone. This means you should always stay 5 big steps away from the sides and front of the bus
- Don’t walk behind the bus
- Always stay in sight of your driver, so don’t crouch down around the bus
- Always look both ways before crossing the street because sometimes cars don’t stop for school buses
There are also steps parents can take to ensure their kids’ safety around the bus and at the bus stop, including:
- Make sure your children know the rules of the bus, including how to safely board and exit
- Coordinate with other parents to make sure there is an adult waiting at the bus stop every day, especially with children under 10 years old
- Always make sure your kids are at the bus stop 5 minutes early to ensure nobody is rushing around
- When meeting at the bus after school, wait on the same side of the street as the kids will exit the bus on, so they don’t have to cross the road alone
- If you or another adult can’t be there, make sure the kids know to look both ways before crossing the road
For both kids and parents, it is important to get to know your bus driver. They might have some safety tips or tricks that are specific to their areas or routes, such as a special hand signal to show their students when is safe to cross the road.
Safety Inside the Bus
Student safety inside the school bus is ultimately up to how the students behave while riding the bus. There are several essential rules for kids to follow to ensure that their bus ride is as safe as it can be:
- Always stay sitting in your seat
- Keep feet and belongings out of the aisles
- Don’t stick your hands or head out the windows
- Be careful not to snag any clothing or backpack straps/drawstrings on any part of the bus
- Don’t scream or yell; doing so can distract your driver
- Stand up to get off the bus only when the bus has come to a complete stop
- Always listen to your driver’s rules, they will keep you safe
It is also crucial for students to get to know and trust their bus drivers. It’s important to recognize that school bus drivers first and foremost care about the safety and well-being of their students. A lot of bus drivers act as nurses, counselors, and friends to their kids, talking to them when they’re sad and comforting them when they get hurt.
Because of this, kids shouldn’t be afraid to come to their drivers to tell them about unsafe things happening on the bus. Students should always report if they see somebody being bullied, if they notice somebody breaking the school bus rules, or if they see anything else generally unsafe, and rest assured that their driver will take steps to resolve the issue.
The Safety of School Buses
We’ve already discussed almost everything that parents, kids, and drivers can do to ensure school bus safety, but perhaps the simplest safety tip we can cover is: encourage students everywhere to ride the school bus!
School buses are the safest vehicle on the road. Due to a combination of factors, children are 70x more likely to arrive to school safely when riding on the school bus rather than in a standard car. School buses are built like egg cartons- with a method called “compartmentalization.” The staggered seating and high, sturdy back supports keep kids safe by absorbing energy in the rare case of a collision. Also, because school buses can weigh over 30,000 pounds, and the average car is around 4,000 pounds, a school bus distributes crash force differently, and delivers much less force to passengers than standard vehicles.
The lack of seatbelts on buses seems to be the number one safety concern for many, but contrary to popular belief, seatbelts, on school buses at least, can pose more of a hazard than a benefit. Picture a situation where there is only one driver with a seatbelt cutter and around forty kids strapped in seatbelts; it would take much longer to evacuate a bus full of seatbelt-confined kids than kids who can freely get up and walk off. In bad situations, such as fires, quick evacuation is essential. As stated above, school buses are designed to absorb impact and distribute very little crash force to passengers, so seatbelts would not provide much help anyway in the vast majority of accidents.
In addition to the school buses themselves, their drivers play a key role in keeping children safe. School bus drivers love their kids and care about the safety of every student they transport. They are trained professionals who put a lot of effort and passion into their careers. All school bus drivers go through rigorous processes to make sure they’re able to provide the safest and most reliable transportation for children. School bus drivers, at least in the state of PA, must:
- Undergo 4 different background checks
- Take part in at least 20 hours of school bus-specific instruction
- Pass 4 extensive knowledge tests
- Pass on the road driving tests
Drivers must also refresh their knowledge every 4 years with at least 10 hours of training to ensure that the students are always in good hands.
Hopefully this helped answer any of the questions you had about School Bus Safety, but if you have any more questions, feel free to drop them in the comments, reach out to us at info@rohrerbus.com, or give us a shout at (717) 957-3811!
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