School's Open: Watch for Yellow School Buses!

Our Future is Riding with Us!

ALBANY, NY (09/05/2007)(readMedia)-- The New York Association for Pupil Transportation has issued the following statement related to school bus safety in the opening days of the 2007 school year in New York State:

As our children begin to return to their schools and classrooms, the New York Association for Pupil Transportation urges all New Yorkers to do their part to ensure that the return to school is safe for all children. It takes a concerted effort on all our parts to keep our children safe and to get them safely to and from school each day.

NYAPT wants the public and all parents of school children to understand what will transpire over the course of the new school year:

• A New York school student will step onto or down from a school bus 1,656,000,000 times – that’s over 1.6 BILLION times in this school year. Our goal is to ensure a safe and secure experience for each and every single student each and every time they board or leave one of our school buses.

• Over 2.3 million children will be riding on some 50,000 school buses in every corner of the state as the new school year begins. This will account for some 850 million student/trips over the next ten months of the school year. Assuming an average one-way ride of 2 miles, our children will travel nearly 3.5 Billion passenger/miles on school buses this year.

• The drivers of our school buses are responsible for safely navigating traffic and weather and for safely receiving and discharging their student riders; school districts and school bus operators are responsible with the state for ensuring that they are qualified to do their jobs. School bus drivers undertake extensive preparation and on-going training to help ensure they are ready to drive our precious school children. They are also subject to a variety of background checks and physical performance standards that provide additional assurances that they are ready and able to drive the yellow school bus.

• Our school buses are valuable assets and complex vehicles that are required to be in excellent operating condition each and every day, on each and every route. In recent years, these vehicles have been equipped with cleaner burning engines and new on-board technology that helps keep our children safe and the vehicles in top operating condition. School bus mechanics are responsible with our schools, operators and the state for inspecting them to ensure that they meet these rigorous safety requirements.

• Getting our children to and from school efficiently each day requires proper planning. Our routing systems are geared to doing the job of getting children to and from school as quickly and efficiently as possible. Professional and highly trained school transportation teams take time to review and improve routes on a regular basis to ensure their safety and timeliness.

We note that school bus safety also rests in part on the shoulders of parents who should be encouraging safe behavior by their children as they board and leave our buses each day. Parents should review safe bus practices with their children on a regular basis, as we will do in their schools and on their buses during the school year.

A very important element in ensuring the safety of our children is the attention and cooperation of the motoring public. That means all of us who share the roads with those 50,000 yellow school buses. We must do a better job of paying attention to the road, following the rules, and STOPPING when we see a school bus with red lights flashing and stop arms extended. Those red lights and the STOP arm are mean that there are children getting on or off a school bus. NYAPT President, James Minihan (Katonah-Lewisboro School District) noted that, “We cannot ignore those flashing red lights; they mean one thing and one thing only: STOP!! Failure to stop can and has killed children in our state and we place our children directly at risk every time that we fail to stop. We urge all motorists to heed those red lights! It may mean a child’s life!”

As the school year begins, parents and the public will see additional changes in school bus programs. School bus operators and schools are increasingly focused on efforts to reduce diesel emissions coming from school buses. Some districts will be investing with the state in retrofitting their school buses with emissions reduction technologies while many others will be taking steps to eliminate or drastically reduce unnecessary idling of school buses in the schoolyard and outside school facilities.

We work hard each and every day to make sure that our school children get to school and back home again safely. We call upon teachers, parents, motorists, school transportation personnel and our children themselves to team up with us all year to ensure that safety. Our Future is Riding with Us!

ABOUT NYAPT

The primary focus of the more than 600 members of the New York Association for Pupil Transportation (NYAPT) is on the safe and efficient transportation of the more than 2.3 million students from their homes to their schools and back to their homes each morning and afternoon of the year.

We continue to speak out on issues affecting the ability and financial capacity of school districts to perform this vital transportation service in our state. We urge parents, the media and local school officials to become familiar with your school transportation services and the professional men and women who strive to keep our children safe each day.

Our activities include education, professional training, networking of best practices, identification of emerging trends and issues, and advocacy for sound and effective state policies in school transportation.

For additional information, contact our Executive Director, Peter Mannella, in Albany, at 518-463-4937.

Thank you!