With the publication of national guidelines on selecting the safest school bus stops for students, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is expected to continue rolling out new or revised training materials that are of interest to school transporters, and the long desired national release from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood encouraging more students to ride the school bus.
Word out of Washington, D.C., is that a press release announcing the start of a $5-million, national, public awareness campaign touting the environmental, safety and economic benefits of school buses was in the works to coincide with back-to-school operations kicking off, or about to, nationwide. According to the American School Bus Council, one large 54-passenger school bus can eliminate the need for as many as 36 cars or trucks on the nation's roads that parents, students or other drive to and from school each day, with the assumption that these additional motorists ferry about 1.5 students in each vehicle per trip.
An ASBC survey last year found that nine of 10 parents agreed that school buses are important factors in getting kids to and from school and making classroom achievement possible. Meanwhile, seven of 10 parents said more students would be absent from school if school buses weren't available.
Also on the radar, expected to be made available by the end of this year, is NHTSA's updated school bus driver in-service training series for its Web site as well as a CD that contains the curriculum. But first, the industry can expect to see new child pedestrian safety curriculum for Kindergartners through fifth graders that includes a lesson dedicated to safe school bus loading and unloading practices, on-board student behavior and school bus "danger zone" awareness. This manual is expected to take to the next level the Federal Highway Administration's "National Strategies for Advancing Child Pedestrian Safety," which was published nine years ago in October and helped set the wheels in motion for the creation of the Safe Routes to School Program that launched in 2005.
The feds are also planning the logistics necessary for shooting a new 20-minute video on proper installation and securement of forward- and rear-facing child passenger safety seats, safety vests and add-ons as well as the correct placement of younger students in these devices.The video will be designed as a companion piece to the NHTSA-approved, eight-hour "Child Passenger Safety Restraints on School Buses" seminar hands-on training that applies to the over all 32-hour NHTSA Child Passenger Safety Technician certification program.
And lest we forget, distracted driving remains a hot topic. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will host the 2010 Distracted Driving Summit next month in Washington, D.C. NHTSA will also, again, be participating, and NASDPTS is expected to also send representatives.