For Kyle Alderson, having a school bus involved in his wedding wasn't just a fun and eye-catching way to get from the ceremony to the reception — it was also a meaningful link to his efforts for school bus safety in his youth.
Kyle Alderson, who won school bus safety speech contests in high school, used a yellow bus as a shuttle in his recent wedding. The banner on the back says "Just Hitched! Allie & Kyle."
For Kyle Alderson, having a school bus involved in his wedding wasn't just a fun and eye-catching way to get from the ceremony to the reception — it was also a meaningful link to his efforts for school bus safety in his youth.
As a ninth-grader in Muldrow, Okla., Alderson won the second annual Oklahoma School Bus Safety Speech Contest in 2001. Then he went on to win the national-level contest after it began in 2002.
Ad Loading...
But Alderson took the message of pupil transportation safety beyond the speech competitions.
"The more I got into it, the more I realized how important of an issue it is," he told SBF in a recent interview.
In researching his speech, Alderson had discovered that the wide majority of school bus rider fatalities occur while boarding or exiting the bus rather than on board. He felt compelled to take action.
Alderson struck up a relationship with Randy McLerran, then Oklahoma's state pupil transportation director and the founder of the state's speech contest. With McLerran's help, the high school student launched a program to teach younger kids how to stay safe when they take the yellow bus.
Alderson and several classmates took the program, which was presented in the form of a puppet show, to schools around Oklahoma.
Ad Loading...
Scholarships he won in the school bus safety speech contests went toward Alderson's college education, and he went on to attend law school. Now, he serves as assistant district attorney for the Osage and Pawnee counties in Oklahoma.
As Alderson and his fiancée, Allie, were planning their wedding, they considered various forms of transportation for the wedding party: limo, taxis, trolley. It was Allie who thought to employ a school bus.
Alderson got in touch with McLerran, who retired as state director last year and joined National Bus Sales. The company provided a school bus for Alderson's April 21 wedding, with McLerran on board and his supervisor, Craig Van Doorn, at the wheel.
"We were thrilled to death," McLerran said. "We transported the entire wedding party to the reception and Kyle and Allie to their honeymoon hotel."
Alderson said that since many folks from his hometown of Muldrow couldn't make the trip to Tulsa for the wedding, the big, yellow vehicle was a poignant symbol.
Ad Loading...
"Having a school bus," he said, "represented a big part of my childhood and the things I did in Muldrow."
As the pace of fleet electrification increases and charging infrastructure continues to pose challenges, many fleets find themselves puzzling over the question: how do I install charging infrastructure faster and more cost-efficiently?
Executive Editor Wes Platt offers parting thoughts as he parks the School Bus Fleet bus to focus on ultra-local community journalism, making way for someone else to take the wheel as the pupil transportation industry continues to evolve.
Children's Mental Health Awareness Day underscores the significance of school bus drivers in fostering supportive environments during students' journeys. SAMHSA's initiatives, including stigma reduction and access to resources, complement the Biden-Harris administration's funding efforts to enhance youth mental health services and workforce development.
How do you think the potential shift to permanent Daylight Saving Time or standard time would impact our daily lives and routines, especially considering the divided approach across various states?
I remain impressed by the matter-of-fact heroism that’s often demonstrated by school bus drivers like Deona Washington who are caught in these situations where the best of us might lose our cool and panic. But, then again, bus drivers are a unique breed.
Most applicants sought grant funding to acquire electric school buses, with propane coming in a distant second. No one indicated plans to purchase compressed natural gas (CNG) buses in this round. That’s not terribly surprising, I suppose, given how few school districts listed the inclusion of CNG buses in their fleets for our 2023 top district fleets survey.
Calendar pages keep flipping toward the mandates set in states like New York and California to transition their school bus fleets from diesel to zero-emission, but there’s plenty of reluctance and pushback.
Today, California prides itself on utilizing the most zero-emission (ZE) school buses in the country with over 1,689 being used by California school districts; and while the state is on a positive health trajectory thanks to a decree to eliminate gas and diesel vehicles, more work needs to be done to improve children’s well-being.
Bus drivers are the primary caretakers of children during their commute and thus bear responsibility for their safety. By prioritizing proper operating procedures, maintenance checks, and additional precautions, drivers can help avoid the loss of precious young lives under their care.
FMCSA proposes to amend certain Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs) to ensure the safe introduction of automated driving systems (ADS)-equipped commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) onto the nation’s roadways. The proposed changes to the CMV operations, inspection, repair, and maintenance regulations prioritize safety and security, promote innovation, foster a consistent regulatory approach to ADS-equipped CMVs, and recognize the difference between human operators and ADS.
