Researchers at the University of Iowa have published a study showing that school buses are among the safest forms of transportation on the road. Corinne Peek-Asa co-authored the report which involved the evaluation of crash data in Iowa between 2002 and 2005.
She says previous studies have only focused on high-impact collisions involving school buses. "There’s much less research that looks at crash involvement of buses," Peek-Asa said. "That gap has sort of left the public feeling like buses may be very dangerous, because what they hear about is those catastrophic crashes."
The U-I researchers compared school bus mileage data to crash, injury and fatality reports. On average, there were 13 injuries and only one fatality per 100 million bus miles traveled. Peek-Asa says they also found injuries were five times less likely in school bus crashes compared to other vehicles. The study shows most of the accidents involving school buses were caused by other motorists.
"They tend to happen when someone is following the bus too closely, trying to pass the bus or trying to turn left in front of the bus," Peek-Asa said. In addition, the person most likely to be injured on the bus – is the school bus driver. Peek-Asa credits the seats for keeping students relatively safe.
"Because the seats are built really high and have a lot of padding on them, unless you’re going really fast, you’re not going to hit anything with enough velocity to cause severe or fatal injury," Peek-Asa said.
The U-I study appears in the March issue of the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention.