School Bus Safety…a Community Effort!
September 5, the first day of school for 2018-2019, is quickly approaching. This is an exciting time of year for the children, but also for the moms and dads and caregivers who watch their children step onto our yellow school buses, and then wait expectantly each day for them to arrive home safely.
The Shenendehowa Central Schools Transportation Department wants to remind families how important it is, and how safe it is, for our children to ride the yellow school bus.
As the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) stated in April 2002: “American students are nearly eight times safer riding in a school bus than with their own parents and guardians in cars.”
The Shen Transportation Department wants to call the public’s attention to some of the reasons why the school bus is so safe, and we want to underscore how hard we work to provide that safe ride to and from your local school.
- Our school buses are far and away the safest way for our children to get to school and back home each day. School buses are built to exacting federal and state standards. They are maintained and inspected on a rigorous schedule by the state, and then each day by local drivers and mechanics, to make sure they are worthy of carrying our children.
- Our 200 school bus drivers and 70 bus attendants are well-prepared with a variety of state-sanctioned licensing/certification procedures, medical screening, state-sanctioned training, and regular testing of their abilities and integrity as professional drivers. Their performance is monitored regularly to ensure they conduct their routes and transport our children safely and efficiently.
- Our routing specialists spend hundreds of hours engaged in routing and scheduling in order to ensure the safety and the efficiency of daily bus routes to and from school.
Did you know that it’s illegal to pass a school bus that is displaying flashing red lights….even if you are on the opposite side of the road and in parking lots? We ask you to please observe this very important traffic law as it directly impacts your child’s and other children’s safety.
Did you know that an estimated 50,000 motor vehicles illegally pass New York State school buses every day, including our own buses here in the Shen district? Nationwide 8 students were killed while boarding or exiting their school bus in 2016 (twice the number from the previous year), and 75% of those fatalities involved a motorist passing the flashing red lights.” Working together to adhere to the law of stopping for stopped school buses with their flashing red lights will help us to reduce this horrific number.
Our main focus is to transport your child(ren) safely to their school on time and ready to learn, and then to deliver them home in the same manner. However, it takes a community effort to ensure the safety of all students, whether they are walking, biking, driving, or riding the big yellow school bus!
Finally, we ask for your patience and cooperation during the first ten days of school as the bus schedules settle. Expect some delays during this time period as we work toward having the buses arrive at your stop during the 10 minute window surrounding your scheduled pick up/drop off time.
