In this blog we look at the school bus news that is breaking currently in September 2018 in the United States of America. School Travel Manager is fully aware of many of the issues that face school bus operators in the world.
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This blog highlights current breaking news in America concerned with the school bus industry, and the information supports how important it is to take every preventative step to ensure safety when children are in transit.
New N.Y. Law to Strengthen Drug and Alcohol Testing for School Bus Drivers
In Albany, New York State the Governor, Mr Andrew Cuomo has signed off on two new bills that will help to strengthen random drug and alcohol testing for school bus drivers.
The new bills were also sponsored by Senator Carl Marcellino and Assembly Member Donna Lupardo. The bills will also ensure that all bus drivers, including those that drive smaller buses that are currently exempt, to take compulsory random tests.
All school bus drivers that have consumed any alcohol cannot take charge of their vehicles for a minimum period of eight hours. These bills followed many instances of school bus drivers being apprehended for driving under the influence of alcohol.
School Bus Driver Praised
News from Lakeview in Michigan reported that a school bus driver was honored for going above and beyond the realms of her duties when she noticed something was wrong at a student’s home when her grandmother had fallen.
The Michigan Education Transportation Services driver, Helen Johnson was quick to notice that the grandmother was not at the door to greet the student when she returned home. The attentive driver immediately called 911 and stayed with the distraught grandmother and student until paramedics arrived.
Survey Counts 80 Thousand Illegal Passes of School Buses
A recent national survey of school buses discovered that in excess of 80,000 motorists ran school bus stop arms just in one day. This is the eighth survey of its kind and was conducted by the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services (NASDPTS).
Thirty Eight states across the country were included, and around 20% of all school bus drivers in the participating states. Over one hundred thousand school bus drivers reported that 83,944 vehicles passed their buses illegally on one targeted survey day in 2018.
If you extrapolate these figures into annual results of a hundred and eighty day school year it amounts to over fifteen million violations among America’s drivers. But this figure is likely to be far greater as only twenty percent of drivers contributed to the survey.
These news stories highlight how dangerous the operation of school buses can actually be, and that anybody concerned with the transportation of young students should grasp any safety measure they possible can. And School Travel Manager is one such safety measure that is available now to the marketplace.