School Bus Passing Accidents Addressed by New Safety Plan: GHSA

More than 13,000 children are injured each year as the result of accidents involving cars passing a school bus illegally.

Over the past 55 years, more than 1,200 children have died in accidents occurring within 10 feet of a school bus, an area often referred to as the “danger zone.” Many of these tragic accidents have been directly linked to illegal school bus passing, raising concerns about the effectiveness of safety strategies and laws current in place nationwide.

The Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA), in collaboration with BusPatrol, released A National Action Plan for School Bus Safety on March 3, outlining the first comprehensive 50-state strategy aimed at eliminating illegal school bus passings and the deaths, injuries and trauma they cause.

The GHSA is a nonprofit organization that provides leadership and advocacy to help states and territories improve traffic safety and reduce dangerous driving behaviors on U.S. roads.

School Bus Passing Dangers

Every day, 20 million children rely on the nation’s 500,000 school buses. In the U.S., drivers illegally pass school bus stop-arms about 39 million times each year, the equivalent of every school bus being passed illegally once every three days.

Over the past five decades, 1,279 children have been killed in the “danger zone” around school buses, the area within about 10 feet of the vehicle where drivers may have difficulty seeing pedestrians. Notably, 73% of the victims were children aged 9 or younger.

In addition, more than 13,000 injuries occur each year in school bus-related incidents, contributing to widespread but often overlooked emotional trauma for children who may begin to associate going to school with fear and danger.

To address this child safety crisis, the new safety plan outlines 69 recommendations urging officials and stakeholders to work together to better protect children getting on and off school buses. The proposals call for coordinated action from state highway safety offices, law enforcement agencies, school districts, bus drivers, technology companies, safety advocates and prosecutors responsible for enforcing traffic laws.

The plan follows a “Safe System” approach to traffic safety, which focuses on designing transportation systems that account for human error and reduce the chances that mistakes will result in serious injuries or deaths.

The recommendations include:

• Integrating school bus safety into Triennial Highway Safety Plans and public education campaigns and working directly with school transportation departments
• Using data analytics to identify high-violation areas and deploy automated technology to enhance traditional enforcement
• Enforcing stop-arm rules on all school buses and teaching elementary students their “passenger power” to speak up about unsafe behaviors
• Training bus drivers with tools like virtual reality to handle unsafe motorists and promote wellness to extend careers and ease driver shortages
• Applying predictive data to identify high-risk intersections and promote legislative advocacy to update state enforcement laws
• Testing all technologies and reaching out to all communities to make them aware of what is available
• Telling stories with data to make it more relatable, raising awareness and creating flexible model legislation for quicker policy adoption
• Treating near-misses seriously and requiring evidence-based programs for offender rehabilitation

“This action plan moves us past isolated efforts toward a coordinated national strategy, utilizing a Safe System approach to ensure that every child’s journey to and from school is defined by safety, not fear.”

— Jonathan Adkins, GHSA Chief Executive Officer

BusPatrol also announced plans for a nationwide school bus safety roadshow, during which company representatives will travel to communities across the country to discuss the findings of the National Action Plan with local officials, educators, transportation leaders and parent organizations.

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