Beyond the Flames

As the summer season comes to a close, and the roads become less congested with tourists, they will be replaced with the familiar return of the yellow school bus. Yes, it’s the time of year again where thousands of the county’s youngsters will return to the county’s roadsides to ride off for their educations.
But with children on the roadside and buses on the roads, so again comes the danger of motor vehicle accidents involving school buses or school children. Each year in the U.S. an average of 33 students are killed in school bus-related accidents, most of them involving pedestrian students crossing the road, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
These deaths are easily preventable, and there are a few things that you and your children can keep in mind to make sure Cape May County doesn’t add to a growing list of South Jersey communities with a history of news-making school bus accidents. Talk to your children about bus stop safety.
The first step to ensuring safety is making sure you have enough time to be taking safety into consideration. Be sure to leave plenty of time for your children to prepare for and arrive at their bus stops. This will prevent your children from rushing and potentially forgetting traffic safety rules and other precautions.
When walking to the bus stop, your children should always utilize a sidewalk, when possible, or stay as far to the shoulder of the road as they can. It’s also a good habit to keep your children from listening to iPods or MP3 players while walking to the bus stop, as the music can distract your child from the sounds of an approaching vehicle.
In addition, be careful when your children are wearing hooded sweatshirts – this can often make them less visible to other drivers, especially in unfavorable weather. Students should allow the bus to come to a complete stop before approaching to board, and if they have to cross the street in order to do so, they should wait for the bus driver’s signal to cross, as well as looking both directions themselves before crossing to board the bus.
While on the bus, you children should avoid carrying backpacks with key chains or drawstrings on them, as these can get caught on the seats and metal joints on the bus and cause your child to become stuck, or lose their balance and fall unexpectedly. Keep seat belts on at all times once passengers are seated, and keep all objects inside the window.
Rest assured, however, buses have made great strides in recent years, with special safety features on them allowing them to better protect students, from enhanced emergency exit doors and seat belt harnesses, to a built-in fuel cage surrounding the fuel tank to prevent puncturing. And due to a school bus’s height in relation to other vehicles, it’s seating level area is above the crash line of impact in most motor vehicle crashes with normal-sized vehicles, meaning that the area below the students would absorb the most energy.
While you can’t oversee everything your child might do on a bus, you can do your part by being aware of buses, bus stops, and children awaiting buses. Use extra caution in areas close to a school, as there might be children walking to school that live in a close proximity. Always stop for school buses, and never attempt to pass them, either when they’re stopped picking up children in driving – your passing creates an unnecessary hazard that might be missed by a drive because you’re in his blind spot. Happy schooling. Stay safe.