Safe Speed Forums

Just watched an edition of Real Stories, dealing with School Buses/Transport. Whilst the programme obviously highlighted some real rogues, and focused on a young mother, whos daughter had been killed in an accident whilst she was a passenger in an unroadworthy school bus. The driver of said bus was unlicensed and uninsured, the owner of the company was banned from providing school transport. As is the way with our legal system, he was found running a school transport company. CPS really ain't interested if you don't trip a GATSO these days. Anyway I digress.

The programme diid a very small spot on the Student First coach company. They have the big Yellow buses with the CRB checked drivers. Whilst this is an excellent step in the right direction, my personal belief is that this isn't far enough. As I usually do, I will make a comparison with a country I believe has got school transport down to a tee.

In America, the school buses are only ever school buses, they don't get used for anything else. In the same way as Student First. They are bright Yellow, but here the similarity ends. The Buses in America have flashing lights on the roof. Also, when they stop, massive red lights flash at the rear, and the driver puts out a stop sign. It is in the American highway code that you may not pass a school bus at a stop.

My personal experience is, that upon spotting a school bus in the states, if it is obviously taking the route I wish to take I will re-route, because they go so slow, and are a pain. But actually this is a good thing. As I am sure Mr. Smith may agree, diverting traffic away from kids, who frankly aren't paying attention. Should you get caught behind one, and it stops, you have to wait for the kids to alight. OK the kids can be very annoying, and take the piss, I have yet to hear of a child being killed in a 0mph accident. scuffed knee from walking into a stationery vehicle may attract a law suit in the USA, but I prefer that any day to killing a child at 30mph. (that's me in the car at 30 by the way )

Do you think we in England could benefit from such a law? Provided that it was implemented correctly, and wasn't seruptitiously hijacked by corrupt politicians like the GATSO's have been.

I used to do a lot of work with school buses and minibuses in my last job. In particular, seat belt anchorages are a hobbyhorse of mine. So many kids get taken to school on clapped-out "retired" coaches that wouldn't actually be able to get any work if they had to attract "paying" punters! They are very often over 20 years old and they often have stickers in the window proudly stating "seat belts on all seats". What they tend NOT to say is that the seat belts are attached to the frames of seats that were never designed to take seat belt loads and that the seats themselves tend to be bolted through a semi-rotten bit of 1/2" plywood floor! Quite aside from the other potential hazards of using such old vehicles, the seat belts really wouldn't be of any use in a crash on many of them.

Even today, it is still perfectly legal to build a brand new bus and use it to ferry school kids about WITHOUT having tested the seat belt anchorages. It's true that as part of it's "Certificate of Initial Fitness" inspection, these are now "visually assessed" but to my mind, there's no substitute for a proper test. The trouble is, it's an expensive, destructive test and statistically, school buses are extremely safe. This is mainly because they don't do long distances and tend to do their trips in relatively low speed areas. (And they're also a lot bigger than most of the things they're likely to hit)! The truth is, the kids are more likely to get hurt going to school in mum's 5 EuroNCAP star hatchback than in the bus!

I looked at an American school bus for a company that was thinking of importing them into the UK. They made no bones about the fact that they were interested because these things were DIRT cheap! They are extremely low-tech affairs - at least the one I looked at was! No ABS, no seat belts, just like something from the 1950s. The Americans don't seem to believe in seat belts. They work on the premise that kids never wear them anyway (good point!) so they prefer "compartmentalisation" (but they probably spell it with a "Z"!) This is where the backs of each seat backrest are very thickly padded so that in a crash, the little brats just bounce off the foam on the seat back in front of them. Up to a point, that's a good thing but it does slightly reduce the seating capacity because the seat backs are so thick. It also doesn't work that well at preventing ejection in the event of a rollover!

They certianly had good points too. Being bright yellow is definitely a good thing - as are all the lights. On balance, however, I'd prefer to see a bright paint job and lights on a modern European bus rather than trying to retro-fit ABS and seat belts to an American one.

When I was at secondary school (1990-1995) the local coach company used their oldest buses (Leyland Plaxton Supreme - example) which were used for either school runs or OAP days out, occasionally one of the nice ones, presmably when the crappiest of the crap were out of service. Anyway, I don't really blame them really because they were messed up and vandalised often.

I STILL see a couple of the same buses still in service, now approaching 30 years old.

Gareth

So you've just spent £70-80k on a new bus and they want you to fill it with kids? There should be a member of school staff on the bus on both decks to keep the little gits in check. You can't really expect the driver to drive the bus and make sure the kids are behaving.

No doubt the bus company gets the contract when they put in the lowest bid. Then parents get waspy when the kids are run to school in heaps of scrap.

The school run was under discussion on the radio again today (or yesterday, can't remember that far back ).

The scenario of parents arriving at the local school, parking all over the place and attracting the ire of non-school runners seems to be one of todays constant stories. The thing is, it isn't going to go away, parents are not going to stop using their cars no matter how many times they get called selfish, stupid, lazy or whatever other invective is aimed at them. Some may just be all of those things, most probably aren't.
In their own eyes they simply have no viable alternative, even though others may be correct in considering that they do.
Schools don't like the hassle outside the school and try to prevent it, whilst the local authorites nit-pick and penny pinch over who can use the buses.
The trouble is the parents are stuck in the middle. This is one of those things that are well worth spending money on, so what about a Park and ride scheme for the school run? If the school cannot handle the traffic, designate a safe area in the locality that can, and bus the kids between the two.

Excellent idea, and one I've never seen as such before

Obviously it'll never happen then...

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

How much does it all cost - the school bussing contract -i mean.

This morning , spotted a Coach in Rugby, with the schoolkids sign in the back - bus was from a town about at least 25 miles away - now getting a regular occurance to see buses in the lanes , miles from their home town , on a school run route -heading toward another town.And in the villages school kids waiting for a bus.

From the looks of this a very lucrative BUSiness

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Furthur to the comments about North American School bus services. They are exemplary. They buy vehicles which are not built for particular comfort but are functional. As was said, they have amber flashing lights which warn motorists they are going to stop, then red flashers to signal the stop itself. It is illegal to pass when the lights are on. These busses have dedicated drivers who do a thorough pre-trip inspection of the vehicle before setting off to collect children. They collect my son from the end of the driveway and drop him back in the afternoon.
The same driver does the route every day so you can feel fairly safe in the knowledge that your child will arrive in one piece.
This is all paid for from the municipal taxes. My annual bill arrived in the mailbox today. The net school levy on my annual bill is $460.89 Canadian. £230. A very small price to pay for a first rate education system and free schoolbus for the year.
It begs the question, why can't Britain instigate a similar system?

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Once a Cornishman, always a Cornishman

Do they have 3-point seat belts and ABS these days? That would be my biggest concern over having these things over here.

Hang on a minute, I've brought up this idea a few times. To me, decentralising the school run seems an excellent plan. Right now, the areas surrounding schools can be "no-go" for residents at school start/end times and the traffic converging on the school causes a lot of congestion. I think it would be much better to have drop-off points upon which only a fraction of the traffic converged and to bus the students from those.

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Will

Sorry if I appear to have nicked your idea.
As a modification to the plan, how about a round-robin bus route, several buses circulating around the town (especially housing estates), dropping off at school and heading off again? Run the buses for an hour before school starts and an hour after it ends.

No problem When I brought it up, I just got negative feedback with people saying it would cost too much (which I don't believe) etc. That said, anything to spread out the scores of school run vehicles (either geographically or temporaly) should help.

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Will