Child Passenger Safety advocates are found within many specialties, from bus drivers and school transportation administrators to educators and community organizers. Their activites range from working directly with caregivers or children to setting policies or teaching those who want to work in the field.
This section offers information from Safe Ride News related specifically to School Transportation Professionals.
Please contact us if you wish to contribute or make suggestions for additional material related to school transportation and child care.
SRN Editorial: Winds Blowing Warm and Cold for Seat Belts on School Buses
Once again, in the heat of August, NHTSA aimed an icy blast at efforts to require lap-shoulder belts on all school buses. A petition submitted by Safe Ride News Publications and others in January, 2010 (SRN January/February 2010), after a fatal school bus crash in Connecticut, was denied by NHTSA on August 25, 2011. The agency said, “We have not found a safety problem supporting a federal requirement for lap-shoulder belts on large school buses, which are already safe.”
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Babies on the School Bus
When considering school bus occupants, very young children like preschoolers, toddlers and infants don’t typically come to mind. However, Nancy Netherland, Program and Design Management Specialist for Migrant Seasonal Head Start Training and Technical Assistance (MSHS TTA) reports that, of the approximately 35,000-37,000 children enrolled each year in the Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Program, more than half are under 3 years old, and some are as young as six weeks. Since approximately 67 percent of these young children are transported on school buses, this means that this program alone regularly transports more than 12,000 children each year who are 2 or younger.
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Getting Involved in School Bus CPS
Child restraint use on school buses is recognized as a best practice necessity nowadays. School districts regularly transport children with special needs who must ride in child safety restraint systems, and in some districts infants ride to school programs with their teenage moms. Additionally, the law requires that the nearly 1 million children in Head Start programs all ride in an appropriate CR. These students are mostly 4 years old or younger, and may be as young as 6 weeks.
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Why No Boosters on Buses?
In October 2008, NHTSA published the "Federal Motor Vehicle Standards;Seating Systems, Occupant Crash Protection, Seat Belt Assemb;y Anchorages, School Bus Passenger Seating and Crash Protection" final rule, the last components of which will take effect on October 21, 2011. Important among these is the requirement for new buses of 10,000 pounds gross vehicle weight or less to be equipped with lap-shoulder belts, rather than lap-only belts, in all positions.
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School Bus Handbook—Only the Tip of an Iceberg
Editoial by Deborah D. Stewart
The new School Bus Safety Handbook has generated quite a response from SRN readers who, I expect, are among the most avid advocates and the first-adopters of anything that can extend their CPS knowledge.
Now we are reaching out to the school transportation world. Those folks are our main audience, as the organization of the book shows. continued here
Child Safety Restraint Systems on School Buses National Training, NHTSA Course
This 8-hour curriculum including hands-on with products. It focuses specifically on installing and using child safety restraint systems on large and small school buses. It follows the current standardized CPST curriculum and six CEUs for CPSTs may be available—inquire with class organizer.
The course can be taught by a CPST or instructor who has experience with school bus-specific issues To obtain a copy, contact Deanna Capra, National Safety Council, 1121 Spring Lake Dr., Itasca, IL 60143-3201, deanna.capra@nsc.org (Please allow 3 weeks for delivery.)
Using Safety Belts on School Buses: Lifesavers Report 2007
SafeGuard president Steve Wallen described the Safeguard school bus seat with lap-shoulder belts. The seat provides compartmentalization for the passengers behind as well as restraint for the child in the seat, so the seat behind can be occupied by an unrestrained passenger. (Where tethered CRs or vests anchored with a cam-wrap strap are installed on a conventional school bus seat, the seat behind must not be occupied by an unrestrained passenger because the restraint may impede the flexing of the seat back needed for compartmentalization.)
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