School Bus Safety: Know Your Drivers

Every day we trust school bus drivers all across the country to safely transport our children to and from school and any programs in between.  Most of us probably never give it a second thought. I just read an article that explains how a 17 year old passenger on a school bus prevented a traffic accident which would certainly have resulted in passenger injuries or maybe even deaths.

The school bus driver suffered a heart attack while driving students home from school at the end of the day.  The driver did not survive, but all of the students on the bus were spared injury by the quick reactions by this brave teen.  She steered the bus to safety and then put it in park.

My immediate thought was about school bus safety.  Could this situation have been prevented?  Probably not! Accidents are accidents, and they cannot all be prevented. But, there are procedures and policies that can be put in to place that may reduce the likelihood of this type of accident.

Every state and country has regulations regarding who can drive a bus.  The regulations from state to state and country to country vary, but they all have one thing in common.  These regulations are meant to promote safety.

There are school bus routing and transportation software products, like BusBoss, that allows you to keep track of various tests and licenses for your drivers.  With BusBoss, you can track license numbers and their expiration dates, physicals that are due, recertifications, criminal background checks, child abuse background checks, immigration status, defensive driving, basic & advanced, etc.  You can also keep track of driving violations, and absences, among other things.

I am not suggesting that this particular situation could have been avoided by using software to keep track of your drivers.  My point is that you will be better informed to make appropriate decisions regarding student safety by having more information available to you.  If you are not already using software to keep track of this information, I strongly encourage you to see what BusBoss can do for you.