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The Relative Risks of School Travel: A National Perspective and Guidance for Local Community Risk Assessment -- Special Report 269 (2002)

Chapter: Appendix Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century: Section 4030, School Transportation Safety

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century: Section 4030, School Transportation Safety." Transportation Research Board. 2002. The Relative Risks of School Travel: A National Perspective and Guidance for Local Community Risk Assessment -- Special Report 269. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10409.
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APPENDIX
Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century

Section 4030, School Transportation Safety

  1. Study.—Not later than 3 months after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall offer to enter into an agreement with the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences to conduct, subject to the availability of appropriations, a study of the safety issues attendant to the transportation of school children to and from school and school-related activities by various transportation modes.

  2. Terms of Agreement.—The agreement under subsection (a) shall provide that—

    1. the Transportation Research Board, in conducting the study, shall consider—

      1. in consultation with the National Transportation Safety Board, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, and other relevant entities, available crash injury data;

      2. vehicle design and driver training requirements, routing, and operational factors that affect safety; and

      3. other factors that the Secretary considers to be appropriate;

    1. if the data referred to in paragraph (1) (A) is unavailable or insufficient, the Transportation Research Board shall recommend a new data collection regimen and implementation guidelines; and

    2. a panel shall conduct the study and shall include—

      1. representatives of—

        1. highway safety organizations;

        2. school transportation;

        3. mass transportation operators;

        4. employee organizations; and

        5. bicycling organizations;

      1. academic and policy analysts; and

      2. other interested parties.

  1. Report.—Not later than 12 months after the Secretary enters into an agreement under subsection (a), the Secretary shall transmit to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the House of Representatives a report that contains the results of the study.

  2. Authorization.—There are authorized to be appropriated to the Department of Transportation to carry out this section $200,000 for fiscal year 2000 and $200,000 for fiscal year 2001. Such sums shall remain available until expended.

Page 165
Suggested Citation:"Appendix Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century: Section 4030, School Transportation Safety." Transportation Research Board. 2002. The Relative Risks of School Travel: A National Perspective and Guidance for Local Community Risk Assessment -- Special Report 269. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10409.
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TRB Special Report 269 - The Relative Risks of School Travel: A National Perspective and Guidance for Local Community Risk Assessment presents a method to estimate, on a per-mile and per-trip basis, the relative risks that students face in traveling to and from school by walking, bicycling, riding in passenger vehicles with adult drivers, riding in passenger vehicles with teenage drivers, or taking a bus. These estimated risk measures can assist localities in developing policies to improve the safety of students traveling to school and in evaluating policies that affect mode choices by students and their parents. The report also includes checklists of actions to reduce the risks associated with each mode of school travel.

Children in the United States travel to and from school and school-related activities by a variety of modes. Because parents and their school-age children have a limited understanding of the risks associated with each mode, it is unlikely that these risks greatly influence their school travel choices. Public perceptions of school transportation safety are heavily influenced by school bus (i.e., "yellow bus") services.

When children are killed or injured in crashes involving school buses, the link to school transportation appears obvious; when children are killed or injured in crashes that occur when they are traveling to or from school or school-related activities by other modes, however, the purpose of the trip is often not known or recorded, and the risks are not coded in a school-related category. Despite such limitations and the fact that estimates of the risks across school travel modes are confounded by inconsistent and incomplete data, sufficient information is available to make gross comparisons of the relative risks among modes used for school travel and to provide guidance for risk management.

Each year approximately 800 school-aged children are killed in motor vehicle crashes during normal school travel hours. This figure represents about 14 percent of the 5,600 child deaths that occur annually on U.S. roadways and 2 percent of the nation’s yearly total of 40,000 motor vehicle deaths. Of these 800 deaths, about 20 (2 percent)—5 school bus passengers and 15 pedestrians—are school bus–related. The other 98 percent of school-aged deaths occur in passenger vehicles or to pedestrians, bicyclists, or motorcyclists. A disproportionate share of these passenger vehicle–related deaths (approximately 450 of the 800 deaths, or 55 percent) occur when a teenager is driving.

At the same time, approximately 152,000 school-age children are nonfatally injured during normal school travel hours each year. More than 80 percent (about 130,000) of these nonfatal injuries occur in passenger vehicles; only 4 percent (about 6,000) are school bus–related (about 5,500 school bus passengers and 500 school bus pedestrians), 11 percent (about 16,500) occur to pedestrians and bicyclists, and fewer than 1 percent (500) are to passengers in other buses.

When school travel modes are compared, the distribution of injuries and fatalities is found to be quite different from that of trips and miles traveled. Three modes (school buses, other buses, and passenger vehicles with adult drivers) have injury estimates and fatality counts below those expected on the basis of the exposure to risk implied by the number of trips taken or student-miles traveled. For example, school buses represent 25 percent of the miles traveled by students but account for less than 4 percent of the injuries and 2 percent of the fatalities. Conversely, the other three modal classifications (passenger vehicles with teen drivers, bicycling, and walking) have estimated injury rates and fatality counts disproportionately greater than expected on the basis of exposure data. For example, passenger vehicles with teen drivers account for more than half of the injuries and fatalities, a much greater proportion than the 14–16 percent that would be expected on the basis of student-miles and trips.

Special Report 269 Summary

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