10 tips for School Bus Drivers to Manage
Some of the Most Common Distractions
(Adapted from Governors Highway Safety Association “10 Tips for managing some of the most common distractions,” published in Legal Routes, March 2012.)
- Turn it off, leave it off, tune it out. Turn your cell phone off while students are boarding or disembarking, and while driving. Make a conscious choice to avoid bringing on board anything – or anyone – which you have to hold, locate, or watch out for.
Supervisors: Consider implications for allowing drivers to bring their own children on board. Consider initiation of a “dead time” period before and for a period following all aspects of the route. Since drivers can certainly be distracted by lingering thoughts of calls they’ve received, make efforts to extend the amount of time between the call and work with children.
- Spread the word. Let friends and family members know that you are not available for communication of any sort while driving.
Drivers: Discourage your family and friends from becoming your worst enemies. Encourage them to support your determination to stay on task. Supervisors: Reinforce this idea with drivers regularly.
- Pull over. If you need to make an emergency call or contact dispatch or law enforcement, pull over to a safe area first. Do so, also, if the need to intervene with students is likely to be distracting. The safety of all on board is your first priority.
Supervisors: Talk about scenarios that forecast a need to intervene. Discuss with drivers the approaches to getting any necessary help that are consistent with your road conditions and the policies of your district and/or company.
- Establish standards for your student passengers. Tell students about the hazards that can occur if you are distracted by cell phones ringing, or by students wanting to talk to you while the bus is in motion, or by students not staying in their seats. Control noise within your bus. Prohibit – and don’t initiate – loud music.
Drivers: Help students understand that distracting you is a deadly game, and they may well be the victims. Provide students with alternative ways to communicating messages they need you to hear. Consistently enforce “in your seat” rules. What signals of danger or concern will you miss if the noise level gets too loud?
- X the Text. Don’t ever text and drive, surf the web, sign or read paperwork, or read your email while driving.
Supervisors: Make this non-negotiable and demonstrate zero tolerance for violations.
- Know your state’s law, and company and/or district policies. Familiarize yourself with state and local laws before you get in the bus. Some states and localities prohibit the use of hand held cell phones; new federal law prohibits their use by company drivers engaged in interstate trips.
Supervisors: It’s your job to disseminate information. Drivers: It’s your job to know the information you’re provided.
- Prepare. Review routes and directions before you start to drive. If you need help when you are on the road, pull over to a safe location to review the route again and/or get support from dispatch.
Supervisors: Take all steps available to you to acquaint substitute drivers with routing information before the workday begins. Consider notifying school administrators when there is a new driver on the route that needs to take the time to familiarize himself or herself with routes and directions.
- Enforce student conduct rules. Students are not to be out of their seats while the bus is in motion. When drivers allow students to be out of their seats while the driver is driving, the driver violates what is, usually, a non-discretionary rule by tolerating such behavior. In addition, the driver risks, at a minimum, several categories of distraction.
Drivers: Help students understand that you’re not on a power trip. These rules are the rules because they’re absolutely necessary for a safe ride.
- Keep the kids safe. Don’t let the rearview mirror or student reports of behavior by other students create distraction. Pull over to investigate a situation.
Drivers: “Investigate immediately” can’t be taken literally in all situations. Your priority is always safe driving.
- Focus on the task at hand. Refrain from smoking, eating, drinking, reading and any other activity that takes your mind and eyes off the road.
Supervisors: Is there an opportunity to encourage drivers to keep a one-week journal of the activities that distract them – even momentarily? Much like food diaries, in which a person trying to diet writes down what they eat each time they eat for a period of time to get a handle on where the obstacles to weight loss like, a journal like this might illustrate pointedly the activities and thoughts that actually distract individual drivers.