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Are school buses really safe?

Oct 28, 2009 | MOIRA MACDONALD | TorontoSun.com

How would you like to drive a 40-foot vehicle, through all kinds of weather, while also being responsible for the safety of about 70 children, not all of whom know how to behave themselves?

By the way, you can't touch them because there's a "no touch" rule. You'll be paid about 10 bucks an hour, $12 if you're lucky, work split shifts, with no benefits and summers off -- without pay.

Next question: How many of you have entrusted your children's safety to somebody who accepted the above job description?

School bus safety hit the news again last month with the tragic Hwy. 410 school bus crash that killed 10-year-old John Pham. The media focused on whether school buses should have seat belts. But the expert panel is out on whether they work -- imagine getting 60 kids buckled up properly, let alone unbuckled, in an accident.

Ontario's transportation minister, former school board chair Donna Cansfield, has her staff working on a review of school bus safety over the summer, inspired by several recent school bus accidents, the Hwy. 410 one included.

"There were just too many," Cansfield told me. The review "will include everything. We will look at research current and past, we will look at drivers and driver training ... We need to satisfy parents that their children are being transported in the safest possible way."

If the review is as thorough as Cansfield says, it should touch on the effect of chronic driver shortages, much of that fuelled by the paltry wages paid. One union rep from the Georgian Bay area told me his 120 drivers earn $11.18 an hour -- and that's after their first negotiated contract. Some drivers say the industry's high driver turnover -- as high as 30% in some places -- leads to lower levels of experience and stability.

"It's a transient job," says Ray Sare, a driver who tried unsuccessfully to organize Stock Transportation Ltd. drivers with the Teamsters. "Experienced drivers are preferable to new drivers."

Seeking an alternative to his failed union bid, Sare is on a new mission to talk politicians up about the merits of a "manifesto" he and a core of other drivers have written to give school bus driving more respect, professionalism and money. Sare hopes to meet with Cansfield tomorrow.

Even Rick Donaldson, executive director of the Ontario School Bus Association, admits the pay is poor -- "People can work at McDonald's for more money," he says -- but unless the education ministry starts providing more money for transportation, that's how it will stay.

Nevertheless, Donaldson says his industry's safety record is "exemplary" and the qualifications drivers must have are the most rigorous in Canada.

Rod Reynolds, is president of Local 26 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, one of a small number of union locals representing school bus drivers.

"I'd like to see more backing from the school board and the bus company when it comes to unruly students," Reynolds says, adding one of his members discovered a live bullet on the floor of her bus and spent months trying to get the school board's help to do an investigation.

A review should also look at the fact drivers can be tested and certified through the very companies that so desperately need them.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the potential conflict in that. An excellent article last December by Sun Media's Michele Mandel, also on school bus safety, quoted a former driver saying one of his company's testers was "passing people she never would have passed the year before just to get warm bodies in the chairs." MTO for its part says it does announced and unannounced inspections of company licensing programs to help ensure compliance.

We have 800,000 students riding school buses in Ontario every day. Are they as safe on the road as they are in the classroom? Well, you get what you pay for.