Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced Wednesday that he formed a new task force to evaluate the safety of the state’s school buses thoroughly.
This announcement follows a Northwestern Local School District bus crash last week that killed one student and injured more than two dozen in Clark County.
On August 22nd, a 2010 Honda Odyssey went left of the center line into the path of the oncoming school bus, which flipped on its top before individuals on the scene pushed it onto its side to begin helping the children escape.
The new task force called the Ohio School Bus Safety Working Group will examine topics such as school bus regulations, school bus design, maintenance and inspections, driver licensing, certification and training, school bus safety technology, crash risk factors, lessons learned from other school bus crashes, alternative transportation and associated risks, school bus seat belts, safety of special populations, and critical incident protocol.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, school buses are among the safest vehicles on the road, with less than 1 percent of all traffic fatalities involving children riding on school buses.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that from 2012 to 2021, 113 people nationwide were killed while riding in school buses. Fifty-two of those killed were motorists, while 61 were passengers. Seventy percent of those killed in accidents involving school buses were occupants of other cars also involved in the collisions.
Only nine states require seat belts on school buses, and Ohio is not one of them. Several safety organizations, including the National Transportation Safety Board, and parent organizations, including the Ohio and National PTA boards, advise the use of seat belts on school buses.
According to DeWine, the task force will take a close look into Ohio’s bus safety protocols, including the potential use of requiring seat belts in school buses.
“Maybe we can make it safer and that’s what we want to look at. Seat belts are certainly one of the things that this task force will look at, but they’ll look at other things. They’ll see if we missed anything over the years (such as) patrol inspection, the buses, the bus driver,” DeWine said.
DeWine announced that over a dozen individuals will serve on the new task force, including members of the Ohio Department of Public Safety, the Ohio Department of Education, the Ohio Insurance Institute, the Ohio Department of Insurance, the Ohio Department of Transportation, the Buckeye Association of School Administrators, the Ohio School Bus Mechanics Association, parents, and school bus drivers.
According to DeWine, these individuals will examine many facets of the state’s bus safety protocols to help ensure the safety of Ohio children.
“There is always more that can be done when it comes to the safety of children, and I believe we have an obligation to take a holistic look at the safety of our school buses. This group’s review will be thorough, focusing on many different aspects of transportation safety,” DeWine said.
Before the group’s first open meeting next month, DeWine says he may add additional working group members. He anticipates the task force to make school bus safety recommendations by the end of the year.
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Hannah Poling is a lead reporter at The Ohio Star, The Star News Network, and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Hannah on Twitter @HannahPoling1. Email tips to [email protected]
