MOVING KIDS SAFELY - BY BUS

Every day, in communities all over the United States, school children ride buses to attend extra-curricular activities. The commercial motor vehicles (CMV), whether they are yellow school buses or motor coaches, are the safest passenger vehicles operating on the highway. Too often, however, we hear of catastrophic crashes involving students riding on these types of buses, and we subsequently learn that the cause of the crash was driver, not vehicle, related.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has been charged to significantly reduce the number of fatalities resulting from all types of CMV crashes, regardless of whether they are "interstate" in nature. In order to achieve this goal, the FMCSA must employ safety strategies that exceed its traditional scope of enforcement programs to improve the safety of transportation performed by motor carriers and individuals that it does not regulate. "Moving Kids Safely - by Bus" is one of these strategies.

Objective : Improve the way that bus companies are selected for transporting students to extra-curricular activities, by working with the States to develop and implement a method to eliminate unsafe bus companies from consideration. This initiative will result in the use of safer bus companies (operating yellow buses or motor coaches) to transport school kids, and an increased awareness of safety by those competing for the student transportation market.