School Bus Accidents
Generally, school buses are considered to be a safe mode of transportation but there will be instances wherein a child or another person riding the school bus may acquire injuries or be killed while riding a school bus.
School buses make around nine million student trips annually making it the biggest type of mass transportation in the United States. Around 500,000 school buses ply our roads transporting more than 24 million students to and from school or school related activities.
Statistics define school bus accidents as directly or indirectly involving a school-bus type of vehicle that operates as a means of transport for students going to and from school and/or school related activities.
Around 407,000 accidents have happened since 1990 and one-third of one percent of these involves school buses. Recent school bus accidents statistics show that 1,450 people have been killed in these school bus-related accidents.
Over 65% of the total fatalities are usually the passengers of the other vehicles involved in a school bus accident while 25% of the deaths are pedestrians and around 9% goes to the school bus passengers.
These figures can be considered minimal but if you are parent, you should be worried to know that 27 children die each year because of school bus related accidents and these accidents usually would involve children aged between five and seven.
Buses are considered to be large vehicles as they can sometimes weight more than 10,000 pounds and, as national statistics show, large vehicles get involved in 8% of all fatal crashes.
The city of Los Angeles has figured in several of the high profile school bus accidents in the country accounting to several deaths of both schoolchildren and adults.
What usually causes a school bus vehicle accident?
• Passenger overloading – vehicles, as a standard, have a limit of its load capacity and any weight added to the limit will affect the vehicles performance while on the road
• Poor or no maintenance – as a general rule, vehicle owners should properly maintain their automobiles. Maintenance checks should include regular tune-ups, brake maintenance, among others
• Driver inexperience or lack of training – school bus operators should do background checks on bus driver applicants to ensure that they don’t have any records of reckless driving or even DUI
• Negligence – this may be accused on either the school bus driver or the driver of another vehicle involved in a school bus accident
• Other factors – these may include fatigue, going over the school bus speed limit, running off the road, poor driving conditions (icy roads, zero-visibility due to fog, etc.) and the driver’s behavior towards kids and driving as a whole
Injuries from school bus accidents include:
• childhood trauma
• fractured bones
• spinal cord injuries
• brain damage as a result of vehicle whiplash
• first- to third-degree burns
• amputation
• punctured skin and muscular tissues
Given the severity of the accident, these injuries may leave any child physically, mentally and emotionally damaged and this will translate to a significant loss to their families.
Author: Danny James Tapales