With the start of the new school year, children and other pedestrians face a new safety hazard. It’s easy for motorists without school-age kids to forget that the start of the fall semester occurred and now the roads are clogged in mornings and afternoons with school buses and kids walking and riding bikes to class.
Sometimes, a visual reminder is sufficient for drivers to pay more attention to speed and school traffic, but other times, their driving behaviors need to be modified. Read on to learn more.
School buses are inherently safe vehicles
Despite the lack of rider seat belts in most models, not even a full percentage point of traffic deaths happen to kids riding school buses. At least in theory, children riding buses to school are well-protected.
Still, accidents will happen
Very few motor vehicle accidents are truly unavoidable. One driver usually does something wrong or fails to do something right, and a wreck is the result. In the case of a school bus, there may even be multiple sources of liability.
For example, another driver may bear liability for blowing through a stop sign. But if that sign were so obscured by vines that it wasn’t clearly visible, the city or state might also share some fault in the accident. The bus driver themself (and thus their employer, the school district) could potentially have some role in compensating an injured school child for the injuries from a school bus accident.
If your child gets hurt on their way to or from school, as a parent, you will need to be their medical and legal advocate in the days and weeks that follow the wreck.