In aftermath of deadly Tenn. school-bus crash, make safety top priority

Parents who day-in, day-out place the safety and welfare of their children in the hands and motor skills of school bus drivers across the country no doubt are feeling a bit queasy these days.

Their distress is perfectly understandable in the aftermath of one of the deadliest school-bus crashes in decades last week in Chattanooga, Tenn.

There, a bus carrying more than 30 pupils crashed into a tree, then split apart, killing six elementary-school children and injuring 20 others.

Compounding the horror of that tragedy are police reports that indicate the driver, Johnthony Walker, 24, was traveling erratically and at excessively high speeds. Moments before the crash, witnesses on the bus said Walker taunted the student riders, yelling “Are y’all ready to die?”

Collectively, the chain of events represents a parent’s worst nightmare. Though Walker has been charged with multiple counts of vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment, reckless driving and was jailed on a $107,500 bail, little can ease the anguish and suffering of the victims’ parents and loved ones.

That does not, however, mean that school leaders in Chattanooga and across the nation should sit idly by. The deadly crash should serve as a clarion call for those entrusted with ensuring safe passage to and from school daily for 25 million American children in iconic yellow school buses double down on ensuring their drivers exhibit an overriding and unwavering commitment to safety and responsibility behind the wheel.

That may well translate into strengthening policies for vetting all drivers, meting out stern discipline and suspensions for those who fall short and taking seriously any and all complaints by students and their parents about careless bus operation. Prior to the Chattanooga crash, one parent’s repeated complaints about Walker’s purported reckless driving habits reportedly fell on too many deaf ears.

Responsible school administrators and boards of education, including those in the Mahoning Valley, should now collectively listen up. They can help to allay parental fears that the tragedy has produced by assiduously reviewing bus-driver hiring and evaluation policies to ensure such a preventable calamity is never repeated anywhere.

Decisions on hiring and randomly evaluating the quality of bus drivers should be treated with the same diligence and thoroughness as the hiring of teachers.

SEAT BELTS ON SCHOOL BUSES?

The tragedy in Chattanooga also has moved the highly debated issue of mandatory seat belts on school buses to the front burner.

On Thursday, National Highway Traffic Safety Administrator Mark Rosekind renewed the agency’s call, first made in November 2015 for three-point seat belts to be installed in all school buses in the nation. The high cost of such installations – estimated at some to be as high as $10,000 per vehicle – no doubt helps to explain why only six states – not including Ohio – have mandatory seat belt policies.

Others, including the National Association for Pupil Transportation, argue against mandatory seat belts on school buses because, they say, those vehicles are up to 40 times safer than automobiles even without the protective devices. Statistics show about only six students die in an average year in school bus accidents, compared with more than 800 who die walking, biking or sitting as passengers in family vehicles.

Clearly, school bus safety has a strong, respectable and improving safety record in Ohio. Between 2011 and 2015, there has been about a 33 percent reduction in the number of crashes involving those vehicles, according to data compiled by the Ohio State Highway Patrol.

But given the tragedy in Chattanooga and the increasingly large chorus of advocates for belts on buses, there is merit in at least rekindling the debate in statehouses across the nation.

The new session of the Ohio General Assembly come January would serve as one logical place to renew that conversation in our state.

In debating that issue and others involving safe passage to school, maximum protection for children must never take a back seat to concerns over costs. No price should be too high to secure maximum safety of our state’s most precious cargo.