School Bus Fleet Blog


Multiple Authors
2 contributors
Join us in an open-ended conversation about children and school buses – and the people who bring them together from SBF's editorial team and guest authors.


Multiple Authors
2 contributors
Join us in an open-ended conversation about children and school buses – and the people who bring them together from SBF's editorial team and guest authors.
The two most populous states in the nation — California and Texas — now have laws on the books requiring school buses to be equipped with lap-shoulder seat belts for passengers. Texas joined California last week when its governor, Rick Perry, signed a bill requiring all new school buses bought after Sept. 1, 2010, to have three-point belt systems.
Read More →I've started taking the bus again. No, not to school. That was many decades ago. Now, I'm riding the local transit bus to the office about once a week. But I'm finding many similarities to my school bus ride from so long ago.
Read More →I read an interesting thread in our Forum about whether bus drivers should be allowed to yell at their passengers. Most of the respondents believe it's OK, and often necessary, to yell at students. Others said department policies prohibited them from doing so. As the father of two boys, ages 6 and 8, I can assure you that I occasionally have to, uh, speak loudly to get their attention. They get so involved in what they're doing that they don't otherwise hear me. It's only rarely that I yell...
Read More →I want to share an inspiring story sent to me by Jerry Cataldo, shop foreman at Trussville City Schools in Alabama. At 4 a.m. on Friday, May 11, a custodian noticed that the tires of 28 of the system's 44 buses had been flattened. All 168 tires of the buses parked at Hewitt Trussville High School and Hewitt Trussville Middle School were either going flat or completely flat and broken loose from their rims.
Read More →I saw a news report on a local TV station over the weekend about L.A. school bus drivers caught using their cell phones while transporting students. The report had a "gotcha" quality to it, with the reporter confronting the drivers as they got off the bus. This wasn't the worst piece of TV journalism that I've seen, but it did make a point -- bus drivers are violating California law by using cell phones while driving a school bus.
Read More →You've heard of NIMBY, right? If not, it means "not in my backyard" and generally refers to neighborhoods that don't want certain types of local development, e.g., liquor stores, prisons (!), rail lines, etc.Well, I've got a NIMBY situation. Just two blocks from where I live, a former elementary school that has been used for adult education classes is going to be re-activated this fall as a middle school. The kids who will be attending this school were displaced because their existing facil...
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