For some 22 million students nationwide, the school day begins and ends with a trip on a school bus. Unfortunately, each year many youngsters are injured and several are killed in school bus incidents.
School bus related crashes killed 164 persons and injured an estimated 18,000 persons nationwide in 1999, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and General Estimates System (GES).
Over the past six years, about 70% of the deaths in fatal school bus related crashes were occupants of vehicles other than the school bus and 20% were pedestrians. About 4% were school bus passengers and 2% were school bus drivers.
Of the pedestrians killed in school bus related crashes over this period, approximately 77% were struck by the school bus.
Of the people injured in school bus related crashes from 1994 through 1999, about 44% were school bus passengers, 9% were school bus drivers, and another 43% were occupants of other vehicles.
Although drivers of all vehicles are required to stop for a school bus when it is stopped to load or discharge passengers, children should not rely on them to do so