1.
How many
students can sit on a school bus seat?
2.
Why don't school
buses have seat belts?
3.
Who should I
contact if I have a problem with my child's school transportation?
4.
What does it
take to become a school bus driver?
How many students can sit on a school bus seat?
There is no absolute
number. Under Connecticut law, the maximum number of students that can
be transported in a school bus corresponds to the seating capacity
designated by the manufacturer of the bus. Thus, a 72-passenger bus can
carry 72 students, regardless of their age or size. Federal regulations
govern how manufacturers determine seating capacity, using a 15-inch
block for each designated seating position and rounding up to the
nearest whole number. Most school bus seats are 39 inches wide; dividing
39 by 15 produces 2.6, which rounds up to three seating positions per
seat.
Clearly that formula is not
appropriate for all students. While state law does not limit the number
of students per seat, it does require that aisles and exits be free of
obstruction. This means that students cannot be hanging off the seats
into the aisles, and their belongings cannot block emergency exits. A
further consideration is that the passive restraint system called
compartmentalization works only for students who are completely
contained within the seating system; a student who is partially off the
seat is not fully protected. Therefore, the number of students that can
safely sit on a school bus seat is the number that fits entirely on the
seat.
Why don't school buses have seat belts?
In considering this
question, we need to make a distinction between lap belts only,
which is the system most often used in school buses, and the three-point
lap/shoulder safety restraint system, which has recently become
available for school bus seats.
If the question refers to
lap belts, the answer is relatively simple. Lap belts are not an
effective restraint system, and they can cause injury to young children.
You may hear many other concerns when discussing school bus seat belts,
such as misuse of the belts by students, cost, building the seat belt
usage habit, maintenance, etc., but these issues are all peripheral to
the essential safety question: Are children at less risk of injury in
school buses with lap belts or in school buses without lap belts?
All of the primary research
that has been done on this question, including that of the National
Transportation Safety Board, the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, and the Transportation Research Board of the National
Research Council, has concluded that school buses without lap belts
offer excellent protection to occupants in crashes by virtue of their
superior construction and the compartmentalized seating standard. This
standard, which is unique to school buses, protects passengers by
placing them between high-backed, well-padded seats that are designed to
absorb crash forces. The effectiveness of compartmentalization is
evident when you consider the statistics: Of some 5500 children under
the age of 18 who die annually in motor vehicle crashes nationwide, only
7 are in school buses.
Compartmentalization works
this way: When a school bus crashes into an object, the unrestrained
child slides forward on the seat, hitting the back of the seat in front
of him, first with his knees, then with his trunk and shoulders. The
seat back gives a little, absorbing the crash forces and distributing
them so that there is no concentration of trauma in one part of the
body. This system works so well that passengers in extremely severe
accidents have escaped serious injury. (School bus occupant fatalities
usually occur only when the victim is in the direct line of impact with
a heavier vehicle, such as a train or tractor-trailer. In those cases,
no restraint system would protect the passenger.)
But look what happens when
you add a lap belt to the seat. Because the child's hips are now
secured, he can't slide forward. Instead, his trunk and head fly
forward, pivoting over the lap belt, and hitting the seat back in front
of him. This concentrates all the force of the impact on the child's
head and neck, resulting in high HIC (head impact criteria) values, and
increased trauma to the head and spine. In addition, because a child's
pelvic area is still undeveloped, the lap belt does not stay anchored
below the iliac crests as it does in an adult. As the belt rides up on
the abdomen, it puts increased pressure on internal organs, creating
serious abdominal trauma. A biomedical engineer from Duke University
told the National Transportation Safety Board that the trauma produced
by a lap belt when a 60 pound child is involved in a 30 mph accident is
worse than riding over the child with the rear wheel of a car.
So the answer to the
question about lap belts only appears to be that children
are at less risk of serious injury in school buses without them, because
lap belts are both ineffective and dangerous.
Lap/shoulder restraints
are different, however.
This system, similar to the ones in automobiles, works with
compartmentalization and, according to NHTSA, could provide some
additional benefit to occupants of school buses, if it is consistently
and properly used. But the federal government does not believe that a
mandate for lap/shoulder belts is justified, because the safety benefits
are very small and the cost is high. Furthermore, there are several
potential negative factors, such as children wearing the shoulder
portion improperly, that could mitigate the benefits of the restraints
and result in a net loss of safety.
Local school districts that
are considering whether to equip their new school
buses with lap/shoulder
restraints are necessarily mindful of budgetary constraints and their
need to balance incremental safety improvements with fiscal
responsibility. We want to emphasize that school buses without
restraints are still safer than any other current mode of
transportation—whether it’s walking to school, riding bikes, or
traveling in parents’ cars. A study by the National Academy of Sciences
found that 800 children die each year during school transportation
hours, and only 5 of them are school bus passengers. The biggest mistake
that districts could make is to reduce the number of students who
qualify for transportation in order to afford new buses with restraint
systems. Any possible benefit of the restraints would be completely
overshadowed by the increased risk to students who were denied school
bus transportation.
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/buses/schbus/schbussafe.html NHTSA's report to Congress on their school bus
occupant protection study
http://www.stnonline.com/sb_seatbelt.htm STN Online's The Great Seat Belt Debate
(everything you ever wanted to know, and more)
Who should I contact if I have a problem with transportation?
The place to start is at
your school district's transportation office. Most larger districts have
a transportation coordinator, but in smaller districts transportation
may be handled by the business manager or the assistant superintendent.
If you call the administration office, they will send you to the proper
person. In some cases, particularly if the problem involves a driver's
actions, you should contact the transportation company directly. Be sure
to have all the facts, and to present them clearly and dispassionately.
Understand that the person will probably need some time to investigate
your problem, but ask when you can expect to hear from him or her.
If your problem involves
lack of transportation or a bus stop, the state provides a procedure
for you to follow if you are not satisfied with the response you receive
from your initial phone call:
1.
You must send a written
request for a hearing to the Board of Education;
2.
The Board must hold a
hearing within ten days of receiving your request;
3.
The Board must send you a
written finding within ten days of the hearing;
4.
If you are still not
satisfied, you can ask for a transcript of the hearing and appeal the
finding to the State Board of Education.
Be aware that the State
Board will not overturn the local Board unless they find that the
Board's action was arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable. Generally, if
the local Board acted according to its written policies concerning the
provision of transportation, the State Board will uphold the ruling.
If you are concerned about
the safety of a bus stop, we suggest bringing together a group to
review it. The group should include representatives of the
transportation company, the school administration, the local police
traffic division or highway patrol unit, the town highway department (if
the stop is on a town road) or state DOT (if on a state road). Sometimes
the State Department of Motor Vehicles will send an inspector to review
the stop (contact Sergeant Green at the Commercial Vehicle Safety
Division in Wethersfield, 860-263-5441).
What does it take to become a school bus driver?
School bus drivers are
professionals who are subject to higher standards in training and
licensing than any other drivers on the road. Before becoming a school
bus driver, a person must
1.
Apply for a commercial
driver's license (CDL) with a passenger (P) endorsement. Study for the
knowledge tests required for this license. The knowledge tests cover
laws, regulations, and safe driving practices.
2.
After passing the knowledge
tests, begin training for the skills tests. The three skills tests cover
inspection of the vehicle, special maneuvers on a closed course, and a
road test. It takes an average thirty hours of training to master the
skills in a school bus.
3.
Get a comprehensive
physical examination according to state or federal standards.
4.
Obtain two sets of
fingerprints, one for a state police criminal record check and one for
an FBI criminal record check.
5.
Undergo a motor vehicle
record check. The applicant must also have his name checked agaijst the
Connecticut Sex Offender Registry.
6.
After mastering the driving
skills, begin school bus training. A minimum of ten hours is required on
such subjects as safe loading and unloading, railroad crossings,
emergency procedures, and student management.
7.
Take the skills tests with
a motor vehicle inspector.
8.
After passing all tests and
record checks, receive a CDL with P and S (school) endorsements.
9.
Submit to pre-employment
urinalysis drug testing, and agree to random drug and alcohol tests.
10.
Enter company and school
district training to learn routes, policies, and additional student
management training.
Of course, these are the formal requirements. It also takes patience, commitment, responsibility, a love of children, and a sense of humor to be a school bus driver. In return, school bus drivers get affection from their passengers, gratitude from parents, glares from other motorists, and pride in knowing that they are an important cog in the wheels of education. They also get summers and school holidays off, and the privilege of taking their preschoolers to work with them. All in all, it's a tough job with a lot of rewards.