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Safety
instructors
Instilling safety practices and
values...
School bus safety training has
improved drastically in most areas over the past generation, but
unfortunate pockets of ignorance persist. Perhaps the most
important factor influencing the level of safety provided to
students using school buses is the presence, or lack of, a
skilled safety instructor within the operation. The
Transportation Research Board’s comprehensive study,
“Improving School Bus Safety,” (Report 222) concluded that
improving driver and student training was the single most
effective way to improve safety.
Specialized art
Safety education for school bus
drivers, attendants, and students is a specialized art.
Effective training programs - both classroom and
behind-the-wheel - depend on highly qualified instructors who
are passionate about school bus safety. Because safety issues
and safety procedures are constantly evolving in the school bus
industry, instructors must be committed to staying current. Last
year’s safety information isn’t enough to protect children.
State training requirements vary
widely, but even where not mandated, responsible pupil
transportation carriers understand the pivotal importance of
having quality instructors on staff. Maintaining a high level of
safety awareness within an operation takes constant effort on
the part of safety staff. Because the stakes are so high in
pupil transportation, training is never “finished.”
Catalysts for
change
Historically, passionately
uncompromising safety instructors have often been the catalysts
for higher school bus safety standards within a community. But
deepening fiscal pressures today make training funds a tempting
target for budget cuts on both state and local levels. In
reality, “paper compliance” with minimum state training
requirements (which vary widely) is inadequate to the challenge
of transporting today’s children in today’s traffic environment.
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