Research and Public Opinion on School Transportation

ALBANY, NY (10/14/2011)(readMedia)-- The New York Association for Pupil Transportation is using the 2011 National School Bus Safety Week to highlight the factors that contribute to the overall safety of the school buses and school transportation systems that transport over 2.3 million New York children every day, and some 25 million nationwide.

The yellow school bus is an icon in our society. It speaks of safety and security and a solid and wholesome education for our children. That safety and security do not come easily but require the dedication and hard work of many professionals in the school transportation community.

This edition relates to demonstrating through independent research just how safe the yellow school bus is and why it is vital to our education system in New York and the nation.

Do you wonder just how safe the yellow school bus is and how do we know this to be true?

The National Academy of Sciences completed a study in 2002 that identified the numbers and causes of accidents and fatalities during the hours in which children are going to school and returning from school. They were able to track the incidence of fatalities that took place in the various vehicles in which children are taken to school. Their results were startling and should give parents pause for thoughtful consideration.

Here is a citation from the NAS report in 2002 entitled "The Relative Risks of School Travel: A National Perspective and Guidance for Local Community Risk Assessment" (emphasis added):

"Each year approximately 800 school-aged children are killed in motor vehicle crashes during normal school travel hours. (Normal school travel hours were defined by the committee to be 6 a.m. to 8:59 a.m. and 2 p.m. to 4:59 p.m. each weekday from September 1 through mid-June.) This figure represents about 14 percent of the 5,600 child deaths that occur annually on U.S. roadways and 2 percent of the nation's yearly total of 40,000 motor vehicle deaths.

Of these 800 deaths, about 20 (2 percent) -- 5 school bus passengers and 15 pedestrians--are school bus-related. (Fatality and injury data related to loading and unloading were available only for the school bus mode.) The other 98 percent of school-aged deaths occur in passenger vehicles or to pedestrians, bicyclists, or motorcyclists.

A disproportionate share of these passenger vehicle-related deaths (approximately 450 of the 800 deaths, or 55 percent) occurs when a teenager is driving...."

This tells us that the yellow school bus is far and away the safest mode of transportation for our school children.

The facts show that the school bus is immensely safer than any other mode of transportation available to take our children to school. This is due in part to the external design of the school bus, the skills and preparation of the school bus driver, and the internal safety components of the school bus.

When state policy makers and local boards of education struggle with decisions related to funding for school transportation, we urge that they keep these facts in mind. By reducing access to yellow school buses, we are increasing the likelihood of our children being injured or killed en route to school or en route to their homes at the end of the school day. Support for sound and effective school transportation is simply good for our children.

In addition to the safety aspects of the yellow school bus, the school transportation community has documented that there are savings in terms of fuel consumption and pollution when school buses transport our children. For example, assume that a school bus carries on average about 40 students on each leg of its daily routes. In the absence of a school bus, those students would have to be transported in personal vehicles driven by their parents each day.

Additionally, there is a direct savings of fuel consumption by the fact that those vehicles would not have to be on the road. There is a reduction in pollutants because those personal vehicles would not be sitting in the school parking areas waiting to drop off or pick up their children. Moreover, there is a time element for parents who must travel to the school property instead of traveling to their place of work each day. There are 'calculators' of these savings available through organizations such as the National Association for Pupil Transportation and the American School Bus Council.

The school transportation community also knows that the yellow school bus makes education accessible to many students for whom travel to school would otherwise be a hardship including those in distant rural areas and congested, high-traffic and high-crime urban centers. We believe that the yellow school bus is an integral part of our education system and is a great benefit to our children and their families.

We will explore further the safety factors that contribute to this reality in further releases during this 2011 National School Bus Safety Week. Our releases will cover the construction of the school bus, the licensing of school bus drivers, bullying on school buses, clean air and school buses, illegal passing and the overall benefits of school transportation services.

The New York Association for Pupil Transportation is a professional organization comprised of over 600 members, representing school transportation officials in school districts, BOCES and public educational institutions across New York State. NYAPT is committed first and always to the safety of the 2.3 million school children we transport to and from school each and every day. We are committed to actively support legislation, regulations and policies that are in the interests of those school children and call upon State leaders to keep those children in mind during legislative negotiations.