School Bus Accidents

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has denied a petition to require seat belts in school buses saying it would be too costly and school buses are already safe, reports Fair Warning. The petition had been filed by the Center for Auto Safety, a Washington, D.C. based auto safety group has been denied by the NHTSA. It’s estimated five children are killed in a school bus accident every year and another 14 are killed in school bus collisions with child pedestrians.

The school bus seat belt debate was ignited again in August 2010, when two school buses slammed into a pickup and another truck in Missouri, killing a 15-year-old girl and injuring 50 other students. In that crash seat belts might have helped prevent injuries.

There is no requirement under federal law for school buses to have seat belts, however, Florida is one of six states that require seat belts for our students on school buses in addition to New York, New Jersey, California, Texas and Louisiana. The NHTSA does require seat belts on buses that weigh 10,000 pounds or less. The Center for Auto Safety in a petition last year said that in Ohio alone, more than 20,000 children were involved in crashes on school buses.

The NHTSA has said that the cost of adding seat belts at from $5,000 to $7,000 per bus, would force many district to eliminate bus service, forcing kids on the street to find a way home and creating a less safe environment.

The bus accident lawyers in Jacksonville at Farah & Farah remind readers that in a 2008 bus crash in Florida, a bus that had seat belts, there was one serious injury, while in a 1996 Arizona school bus crash without seat belts, multiple students were ejected from the bus including one who was permanently disabled.

Source: http://www.fairwarning.org/2011/08/regulators-veto-requiring-seat-belts-on-school-buses/

Students were aboard a school bus that had just made a stop on its way to Mandarin High School Wednesday, September 29, when a small car rear-ended the bus. The Florida bus accident happened on Deeder Lane at Old St. Augustine Road around 7 a.m., News4Jax.com reports.

Fortunately, the high school students were already in their seats when the car drove under the rear bumper of the bus. Two students who complained of neck pain were taken to Baptist Medical Center South. The driver of the small vehicle was in serious condition and taken to a nearby hospital. The Jacksonville Sheriff’s office reports that the school bus had its stop arm extended, indicating the car’s driver should have stopped his vehicle before causing the Florida school bus accident.

The Florida Department of Motor Vehicles and Highway Safety states that drivers need to be mindful near any school bus. Drivers are to:

• Obey the stop arm and never pass a school bus when the arm is extended or when the bus is preparing to stop.
• Leave enough space between the bus and your vehicle.
• If you are moving in the same direction as the bus, stop your vehicle and remain stopped until the bus retracts its stop sign.
• Assume there will be children or teens in the area and watch out for them.
• Avoid distractions.

An investigation by the Jacksonville personal injury attorneys at Farah & Farah would attempt to retrieve the cell phone records of the driver in this collision to determine if he was using any electronic device just before the crash. Fortunately, in this case there were no injuries to school children.

It happened in early February. Middle school students from Ribault in Jacksonville were misbehaving by setting off an alarm on the emergency exit. This made it unsafe to continue to drive the bus. Instead of pulling over and transferring students to another bus, or calling police, the school bus driver instructed them to get off the bus at Rutledge Pearson Elementary School and find their own way home. Thankfully, no students were injured to due any Jacksonville pedestrian accidents that could have resulted from the kids being off the bus.

This is an unacceptable reaction by an employee of First Student, the bus company. There are rules and regulations in Duval County for bus drivers. Students are supposed to conduct themselves in a respectful way to keep everyone safe. If not, they can be suspended from school and parents have the responsibility to make sure that their children understand that.

But a bus driver also has a huge responsibility, delivering those children safety to and from school. For a child to find their way home from a different school, meant many walked to a bus stop or called their parents. Many parents understandably were angry. First Student says it is conducting an investigation. Cameras on the bus will help tell the story, but even with misbehaving children, this is not the proper response, but a response of pure frustration. The liability of the school district if something had happened is not something they want to hear about.

Fortunately no children were injured due to the bus driver’s negligence. If you have any questions regarding the safety of your child in relation to bus-driving laws, please contact the skilled Florida personal injury attorneys at Farah and Farah by calling 1-800-533-3555.

NHTSA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, issued new rules this week that will improve the nation’s 474,000 school buses. Seat and shoulder belts will be required on small school buses. The requirement will also change seat backs making them four inches higher to 24 inches in all new buses.

Seats must also come equipped with safety latches that can be flipped up or removed without resorting to special tools. That’s the good news.

But there is a huge gap here. What about the large school buses that most children ride in? NHTSA has not resolved that question, despite the fact that all of the research shows that children would be made safer.

Instead NHTSA sets standards for seat belts on large school buses. Five major studies over the past decade have shown seat belts are needed on large school buses. But the Secretary of Transportation, Mary E. Peters said that putting seat belts on larger buses can limit capacity and force more students to walk or ride in cars.

“The last thing we want to do is force parents to choose other, less safe ways of getting their children to school,” she said.

Putting seat belts where people sit will make them less safe? NHTSA says more kids are actually hurt around school buses than inside them, but seat belts on school buses would impact about 1,900 crash injuries each year.

Public Citizen doesn’t like the omission of seat belts from large buses and Joan Claybrook, who was the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from 1977-81, says Public Citizen objects to NHTSAs plans to immunize manufacturers from personal injury liability. Read the rest »

Incredible details are coming out about a school bus crash in Citra, Florida that killed one 13-year old girl. A tractor-trailer driver was talking on his cell phone when he slammed into the school bus Wednesday. Four bystanders who witnessed the accident ran to the school bus and pulled out half of the students from the burning bus.

The Marion County Superintendent of School Jim Yancy says it amazing most of the students were saved. “This was a tragedy, but it’s also a miracle, he tells the Ocala Star-Banner.

One 13-year old middle school student, Frances M. Schee lost her life.Chris Mann, an elevator installer who stopped to help said, “The kid was lodged and I just couldn’t get her out. There was nothing I could do.” Nine other students were injured- two critically.

Read the rest »

School has barely been in session one week and we have a horrible accident to report involving a school bus, a minivan, and a cement mixer truck.  

One eight-year-old girl is dead and seven other children were injured Friday when they got into an accident in a bus owned by a Boys and Girls Club.  It was transporting 27 Tallahassee-area students from Apalachee Elementary School to the club. 

A cement truck rear-ended the bus while it stopped at a red light. It was waiting in the left-turn lane.  The impact tipped the truck to its side and caused the bus to hit into a minivan that was sitting in front if it. 

8-year-old Roshay Dugans died at Tallahassee memorial Hospital.  The other injured students were treated and released.  Apparently the children sitting in the back of the bus had the fewest number of injuries. 

Read the rest »

It was probably a lot of fun for toddlers to go to Chuck E. Cheese in an overcrowded van, sitting on each other or standing. 

But the ride has ended in a Northside Jacksonville day care center, Kids Creations and More receiving a notice of intent to have its license revoked.

Read the rest »

Rarely do we find out what goes on behind the doors of a day care center. But in this case the director of a Jacksonville child care center is fighting state plans to shut down the center. 

Kid’s Creations and More took the little kids on a field trip to Chuck E.  Cheese. Because they only have one van, they packed nearly 40 kids into a van that seats only 15.

Kids were sitting on top of each other and on the floor, an incredibly unsafe situation. Even in the best of situations a 15-passenger van is one of the most dangerous vehicles on the road. When you double up, it’s doubly dangerous.  And one of the drivers only had a learner’s permit. Another has a criminal record. 

Read the rest »

The nine-year-old boy is both blind and autistic, so getting home on a school bus safely is especially important.  

First Student Inc. of Jacksonville, Florida was in charge of that along with two bus attendants to oversee special students.

But this child was allegedly beaten by the attendants, repeatedly pinching him which left red marks and scratches.

Now his family is suing, naming First Student Inc. and the two attendants. Their evidence- photos they took which are pretty clear.

Read the rest »