Report shows dominant safety record of school buses

Federal crash data compiled by the California Association of School Transportation Officials (CASTO) show the relative risk of students traveling to school in a passenger vehicle instead of a school bus.

In the 2007-08 school year, 368 school-age children in the U.S. were killed in passenger vehicles — cars, vans, light trucks and SUVs — during school transportation hours.

Among children in school buses, there were six fatalities during that school year.

As pedestrians, 62 children were killed during school transportation hours in 2007-08.

CASTO pulled the statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System. The deaths were of children ages 5 through 18, and they occurred during normal school transportation hours: 6 a.m. to 8:59 a.m. and 2 p.m. to 4.59 p.m., Monday through Friday, Sept. 1 through June 15.

The report is available on the CASTO Website. It includes data as far back as the 1998-99 school year.