Our Role in Safety
The American School Bus Council’s top priority is keeping children safe on the school bus. We are proud that the school bus is the safest mode of transportation for students, but continuously strive to make our service even more reliable.
School buses provide free access to an education for millions of children in America by providing healthy, safe and secure transportation to schools. Every day, school buses deliver millions of students to school safely and reliably, so they arrive at school ready to learn.
Safe:
Riding in a school bus is much safer than using any other form of transportation – including personal vehicles and railroad and airline travel. The National Academy of Sciences, The U.S. Department of Transportation and other authorities agree that school buses are the safest form of transportation for getting children to and from school. Some 480,000 school buses transport 26 million children – more than half of America’s school children – each day, and complete 10 billion passenger trips and 4.3 billion miles per year, almost always without a serious incident. According to the Transportation Research Board, a part of the National Academy of Sciences, a child is 13 times safer in a school bus than in other modes of travel. Children driving to school or riding with other teenage drivers are 44 times more likely to be fatally injured than in a school bus. (“The Relative Risks of School Travel,” 2002).
School buses are among the safest vehicles on the road; the color and size of school buses make them easily visible and identifiable, their height provides good driver visibility and raises the bus passenger compartment above car impact height. The flashing red lights require drivers in all states to stop, and a stop sign arm swings out during boarding, a crossing arm forces children to walk where the driver can see them, cross view mirrors help drivers see children around the bus, and reinforced sides resist side impacts.
Secure:
From dispatcher to driver to mechanic, there is a trained professional looking after your child’s safety at every step of the trip.
School bus drivers are the most highly trained, tested and scrutinized drivers on the road. All school bus drivers must obtain a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) and must pass written and skills tests to obtain a School Bus Endorsement.
Once they have their licenses, drivers receive specialized classroom and behind-the-wheel training in driving a school bus, student loading/unloading procedures, student evacuation, student behavior and security management, and emergency medical procedures. School bus drivers are carefully monitored by the school district and/or company that manages school bus fleets, drivers can be disqualified from driving a bus for as few as two traffic violations.
In addition, all school bus drivers are required to participate in pre-employment, random and post-accident drug and alcohol testing, frequent driving record checks, and pass periodic medical exams to ensure they are physically qualified. Many of these drivers also must pass background checks prior to employment.
Environmentally Responsible:
By providing convenient transportation for millions of school children, school buses reduce the number of cars that would otherwise be on the road. The school bus helps parents save money on gasoline, reduces traffic congestion (especially around school walking zones, where our children are most vulnerable) and also reduces the nation’s dependence on oil.
Model year 2007 school buses are 60 times cleaner than those built before 1990, and, as older buses are replaced with newer, cleaner burning ones, they will further reduce our pollution and fuel usage. If all 26 million children who ride the school bus each day were driven by their parents instead, a substantial amount of additional carbon monoxide would pollute the air each year. School bus manufacturers also are making large investments in new diesel, natural-gas, electric hybrid and other engines to further reduce pollution.