Warsaw Schools Transportation Director Talks School Bus Safety
WARSAW — The tragedy involving the deaths of six children on a school bus in in Chattanooga, Tenn., after the bus driver was reportedly driving carelessly is still fresh in the minds of many concerned individuals. This incident has parents questioning if those six lives might have been saved if the children would have been required to wear seat belts.
Indiana is one of many states that does not require school buses to be equipped with seat belts for students. The Warsaw Community School District does not currently have school buses with seat belts for students, with the exception of buses transporting special needs students.
Director of Transportation at Warsaw Community Schools Cheryl Cook explained there are many concerns and issues surrounding the topic of whether having seat belts in school buses would help save lives. Cooks believes that some lives could be saved from seat belts, but she also thinks that some lives could be lost from the switch.
Cook states fires on school buses and buses becoming submerged in water are two scenarios which individuals cite as reasons kids should not be strapped in.
Cook explained all students and bus drivers take part in practice sessions twice a year that simulates various scenarios that could potentially occur. Cook said when they practice exiting a bus in the event of a fire, bus drivers are allotted one minute to get all the children off the bus. If they were to wait just one minute more, everyone left in the bus could potentially die from toxic smoke. Cook speculateed it would take much longer than a minute to get young children to unbuckle their seat belts in similar situations.
In the event that a bus were to be fully or even partially submerged in water, it could make it difficult for kids and a bus driver to unbuckle seat belts in order to get out of the bus safely.
In addition, the cost to add seat belts to school buses ranges from $7,000 to $10,000 per bus. With the 72 school buses Warsaw Community Schools uses, it would be costly.
“A school bus is the safest way to transport children,” Cook stated. Cook feels the main issue with school bus safety is not with seat belts, but rather with safety of students while they exit and enter school buses.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, from 2005 to 2014, 304 school age children died in school transportation related accidents. Of the 304 victims, only 53 of the deaths were of occupants of the school transportation vehicles.
Cook explained individuals should not only focus on seat belts for safety, but the number stop arm violations that occur on a regular basis.
Cook said school buses are, “Designed to protect occupants.” Every year when the schools receive six or seven new school buses, they have additional safety features. For instance, some of the newest buses have higher seats, providing kids with more protection.
According to a study done by the Office of School Transportation, during the 2015-2016 school year, in the 227 Indiana School districts studied, 531,720 stop arm violations occurred. These violations included vehicles failing to stop behind a school bus which has its stop arm out and cars failing to stop as they passed buses from the other side of the road. These actions leave kids vulnerable to injuries as they get on and off buses.
The Warsaw Community Schools district is trying to combat the large number of violations by getting cameras installed by the stop arm of schools buses. Since 2014, the school district has added 13 buses which have cameras to record violations.
This does not mean Cook has ruled out the idea of adding seat belts to school buses. Rather, she wants to see more information that points to seat belts being more helpful than harmful to children. “I want to see more research…more options.”