The Kansas State Department of Education (ksde.org) with help from the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services (NASDPTS.org) has performed an annual, national service for over five decades by collecting, analyzing and sharing reports on school bus fatalities in and around school bus loading and unloading zones. From their reporting, bus safety educators have learned that loading and unloading are the “moment of truth,” the time when students are most are risk. The Kansas SDE collection of bus fatality data takes us back to the stone age of bus safety before much of value was done for school bus driver training or school bus construction. The 1972 Congers, NY school bus v. train accident set off a wave of reflection and crisis response to safe school busing that still resonates today, half a century later
Over the past half century, certain trends have emerged from bus fatality data that have become the core lessons of bus safety instruction. The youngest students, age nine and younger are the most vulnerable. 73% of bus fatalities take riders from this age group. For all our efforts to improve bus safety, still more than half, 56.4%, of fatalities are “by own bus (BOB)” tragedies. The majority of bus fatalities, 64%, happen in the morning, belying the presumption that over-eager kids anxious to get home from school are the most prone to a fatal bus accident.
On an annual basis there is too little data to result in new certainties about school bus operations. Over the past decade the United States has averaged about six school bus fatalities each year. The lower numbers of bus fatalities in 2019 and 2020, two and four respectively, might be attributable to the lower number of school bus riders during the Covid pandemic. The Kansas SDE reporting on five year trends is more revealing. In some cases, the trends dispel myths regarding school bus safety. In other cases the trends indicate that bus safety instruction and improved bus design are making a positive difference. For example, in the past five years there have been no fatalities attributed to children’s clothing or book bag straps getting caught in the bus door, resulting in a fatal dragging, or incidents where students dropped papers or other possessions near the bus, and moved to retrieve them, only to be struck by their bus or other vehicle. Both of these scenarios, the drawstring in the bus door and the dropped object, received an abundance of bus safety instruction attention to riders and drivers. In the case of doorway dragging incidents, hand railings used to aid entry and exit were redesigned to make snagging of a drawstring less likely. In New York school bus loading zone fatalities per decade fell by approximately 90% from the decades before much training of the 1960’s and ‘70’s to the intensified training provided in the most recent decades. The past five years of data show that there have been no fatalities involving the smaller Type A vans. One can’t help but wonder if this is due to luck or perhaps to the better frontal vision from a van seat or to the closer connection and higher level of care given to the smaller number of van riding students as compared to Type C and D bus numbers. Or to better training.
The five year trend for “time of day” bus fatalities, AM or PM, mirrors the fifty year trend. Nearly 66% of bus fatalities still happen in the morning. Youngest students are still the most vulnerable. 78.5% of bus fatalities were among students age six – ten. The continuance of this trend that takes so many young students should serve as motivation to improve bus safety instruction for them. This could include making the typical, two minute bus evacuation drill more of a 15 minutes lesson in bus safety with daily, pointed reminders. Over the past five years young female students have more often than boys, 61.5%, been the victims of a loading zone tragedy. This trend in conjunction with the time of day data undermines the stereotypical scenario of a bus fatality as involving an impulsive little boy darting off the bus and into traffic to start his weekend ASAP. In fact, the “day of the week” five year trend shows that Friday is the safest day with about half as many deaths occurring on the last day of the week than the other days. The most recent five year trend also rebuts the notion that bus accidents happen in bad weather. 23 of 26 loading zone fatalities in the past five years happened when the roads were dry. Only about 12% of bus fatalities happened when roads were wet or snow and slush covered. This might be attributed to the higher level of care and concentration that drivers apply in tough conditions. Some credit too, might be given to school superintendents who have become more cautious with their snow day cancellation and delay decisions.
As expected, the vast majority, nearly 80%, of school bus fatalities occur on city streets or county roads, rather than state or federal highways. Over the past five years though, 8%, albeit just two fatalities, occurred on private property. This statistic can serve as a reminder that school districts should not be sending their buses into private property unless they have a written, legal agreement, sometimes called a “hold harmless” agreement, with the property owner for use of their property. A private property can hold too many unforeseen obstacles such as parked cars, trash cans or a basketball hoop that may compel a bus to back up or make another unconventional maneuver, resulting in an accident.
Year after year, the number of school bus fatalities is small, but still larger than it could be. The NASDPTS reminds us in several of its position papers that school bus transportation is by far the safest means of travel to and from school when compared with riding in a parent’s car, riding with a teenage driver, walking or riding a bike to school. It has been demonstrated over the past decades that an increased emphasis on bus safety instruction for students, bus drivers and other vehicle drivers does result in fewer school bus accidents. It can be difficult to keep bus safety, fatality and relative risk factors in proper, data-based perspective. The Kansas SDE bus fatality data for the past 52 years shows that nationwide there have been 1,264 school bus loading and unloading zone fatalities. That’s the equivalent of 29 big buses, filled two students per seat! Proper perspective or not, that’s too many and demands that more be done about it.