Daily, parents put their kids on school buses, assuming
they are safe and in good mechanical condition. On any given day, approximately
47 million elementary and secondary school children board a yellow school bus,
yet remarkably few of these buses have seat belts, and an alarming percentage
have either not been properly inspected or failed inspection altogether. While
responsible parents would never put their children in an automobile with bad
brakes or allow them to ride in an automobile without the use of a seatbelt, the
ubiquitous yellow school bus is a vehicular dinosaur.
While most states have proposed legislation mandating seat belts on school
buses, only a handful actually have them. Even fewer mandate their usage.
Studies show that students riding on belt equipped buses roam the aisles less
frequently and are more likely to remain seated. Additionally, bus drivers
report being less distracted because they have to spend less time handling
student misbehavior and can concentrate more on safe driving. However, seat belt
opponents argue that school buses already are the safest form of transportation
on the road and that equipping buses with seat belts would reduce overall
capacity. Private contractors, as well as many school officials who operate a
third of the nation’s school buses, have fought the installation of lap belts on
school buses for more than thirty years; for the most part federal and state
governments have gone along with them.
Parents should also be reassured that when they put their children on a
school bus each day that the vehicle is safe and recently has been inspected,
(and passed the inspection). Yet surprise inspections throughout the country
have shown that nearly eighty percent (80%) of these buses fail inspection. For all the reasons a bus can fail an inspection, over half fail for mechanical
reasons.
In a recent survey of school bus mechanics, the most common concern expressed
was the braking systems. While the effect of wear and tear may seem obvious,
many brake problems are concealed. The brakes may appear to be functional when,
actually, little force is being applied to the brake drums. Ideally all wheels
should be doing an equal amount of work (applying and releasing at the same
time). Something as simple as maintaining air pressure in the braking system can
prevent a catastrophic failure. Misalignment or brakes that are out of balance
are problems which cannot be seen, but certainly can be felt by the driver. It
is not enough to repair a problem once a defect is found as a result of the
inspection process; inspection programs must be thorough and preventative in
nature, and drivers need to know how to recognize a problem before it becomes an
incident. In the event of a serious injury, defective brake issues should be
thoroughly explored by experts who have full access to the brakes before changes
are made.
School buses should be designed to ensure the safety of the millions of
children they transport annually, but, moreover, maintenance and proper
inspection of these buses should be the rule and not the exception.
The
National Coalition for School Bus Safety found that some operators are even
making money by running unsafe buses, waiting for state inspectors to identify
defects rather than doing preventative maintenance (because it means removing
the bus off the road for a period of time).
Parents have a right to expect that buses are designed and maintained to
minimize injury to students. If a member of your family or someone you know has
been injured as a result of a collision involving a school bus, call Law Offices
of Gary Green.
