School Bus Safety

Standards have been established by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to maintain a high level of school bus safety. The focus of these standards is on human, vehicle, and environmental variables that affect school bus safety levels. This report presents an overview of school bus safety, including insight on recent federal action. Recent action by state legislatures to address school bus safety issues is also analyzed in this report. Among these issues are seat belts; school bus driver training, testing and licensing; illegally passing school buses (including use of video technology on buses to identify offenders); advertising on school buses; fire safety standards; and cellular phone use by school bus drivers.