NTSB Report Calls for School Bus Safety Upgrades
David Wagman | May 23, 2018The National Transportation Safety Board released findings May 22 from a Special Investigation report identifying recurring safety issues in school bus transportation safety.
The report was prompted by the investigation into a November 1, 2016 crash involving a Baltimore City school bus and a transit bus, and a Nov. 21, 2016, crash of a Hamilton County school bus in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The two crashes injured 37 people and killed 12.
On May 17, just days before the report's release, a school bus in New Jersey collided with a dump truck on I-80. A student and a were teacher killed and more than 40 others were injured.
The report notes the overall safety of school buses but found a similarity in the two fatal accidents that were investigated. It said that a lack of driver oversight was found to be a cause in both accidents. The NTSB found this lack of oversight not only by the school districts in Baltimore and Chattanooga, but also by the motor carriers under contract to the school districts.
In both cases, school bus drivers continued to operate school buses unsafely, with no remedial action taken, even when driver safety issues were known. In addition to lack of oversight, the Baltimore report focused on medically unfit school bus drivers, and commercial driver license fraud.
(News reports said that the 77-year-old driver of the school bus in the May 2018 bus accident had a current license, but also had 14 suspensions throughout his life.)
A May 17 crash killed two and injured 40. Source: Washington PostThe NTSB report also addressed safety enhancements for school buses, ranging from lap/shoulder belts to technologies such as electronic stability control, automatic emergency braking, and event data recorders.
NTSB Chairman Robert L. Sumwalt says, “Unsafe drivers are a hazard, unsafe systems allow hazards to persist, and systems cannot be safe without effective oversight.”
In the Baltimore accident, the NTSB says that the probable cause was:
- • The loss of vehicle control due to incapacitation of the bus driver because of a seizure stemming from a long- standing seizure disorder;
- •The bus driver’s continued operation of a school bus with a disqualifying medical condition and a fraudulently obtained commercial driver’s license; and
- •The failure of AAAfordable Transportation and the Baltimore City Public Schools to provide adequate bus driver oversight, allowing the medically unfit driver to drive a commercial vehicle with a medical condition that they knew, or should have known, could lead to the unsafe operation of the school bus.
Contributing to the severity of the crash was the lack of a collision avoidance system with automatic emergency braking on the school bus.
Turning to the Chattanooga crash, the NTSB determined that the probable cause was:
- The school bus driver’s excessive speed and cell phone use, which led to the loss of vehicle control
- Durham School Services’ failure to provide adequate bus driver oversight, allowing an inexperienced driver to operate a commercial vehicle with escalating risky driving behaviors that it knew, or should have known, could lead to the unsafe operation of the school bus
- The Hamilton County Department of Education’s lack of follow-up to ensure that Durham had addressed a known driver safety issue.
Contributing to the severity of the crash was the lack of passenger lap/shoulder belts on the school bus.
In its broader school bus safety report, NTSB made one recommendation to 42 states, the District of Columbia, and the territory of Puerto Rico, all of which lack requirements for lap/shoulder belts on large school buses. The NTSB urged those entities to enact legislation to require that all new large school buses be equipped with passenger lap/shoulder belts for all passenger seating positions in accordance with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 222.
The NTSB also urged Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey and New York to amend their statutes to upgrade their seatbelt requirements from lap-only belts to lap and shoulder belts.
The full report will be available on the NTSB website in a few weeks, the agency says.
Make the buses safer (more expensive) because school transportation officials are incapable of finding safe bus drivers?? What am I missing here?
School buses probably have one of the lowest injury per passenger mile of any ground transportation.
In reply to #1
Robin, what say you.
My observation : school bus drivers tend to belong to three groups. A. Retired ( 65 and older ) B. Housewives looking for part-time extra money employment. C. Over age 21 college students.
Working hours : 6-9 am / 3-6 pm. Less than 30 hours per week. Split shifts and split days combined. Example - work Monday am, then Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday - am & pm, etc.
Usually no benefits other than federal or state mandated workman's compensation.
Pay average $14.00 x 3 = $42.00 - taxes = $26.00 ÷ 3 = $8.60 per hour / drivers hired on a part time and on call basis.
Average day : awake at 0400, work 6-9, return home (?) The one thing log books don't require is for the drivers to provide an explanation of what they did while off duty, but every other notation ( change of duty status ) does. Return at 1500 to 1800. Return home. Total time awake ( potentially 17-18 hours.
Look into your local school bus, it may look almost identical to the bus you rode as a kid. The only padded areas are seats and seat backs, everything else is steel or hard surfaces ( your average 1950's - 1960's car ) at the minimum, seat belts should be installed or should of been installed years ago. The only saving grace is the above ground seat height.
There's more, but I'm trying to make this a short post.
In reply to #2
What say me is that I put my four children on school buses without seat beats and didn't worry about it one bit.
https://www.ntsb.gov
I get it that school bus drivers are not very well compensated. That's the way it's always been and probably always will be. Safety of school buses are very much in the hands of the driver. If school systems want better drivers, they'll have to PAY to get better drivers.
Lotsa folks want safety belts (including the NTSB, NSC, NHTSA, etc.) Will that improve safety? Sure. But by how much and at what cost? Will the kids even use them?
Would we advocate a national speed limit of 25 m.p.h. because it would clearly save more lives?
In reply to #3
I think they will, children today have been exposed to a large mix of safety messages. The two biggest messages I remember as a kid were Smokey the bear and duck and cover drills.