School Bus Drivers Getting a Safety Education : District Officials, Employees Stress Care of ‘Precious Cargo’

At 5:30 each morning, Al Preuitt reaches the Los Angeles Unified School District bus parking lot in Bell and begins a pre-dawn inspection of his bus in a sea of red and yellow lights.

As hundreds of drivers start their engines for a state-required 10-minute warm-up, creating a thick, almost nauseating vapor, Preuitt begins a 95-point evaluation of the vehicle he will drive that day.

Starting with the dashboard and moving outside, he checks the mirrors and windshield, the inside and outside lights and lifts a side flap to inspect the oil level and engine belts.

Re-entering the bus, he stands on the brake to test the pressure, walks down the aisle gripping the seats to see that they are secure, and tries the rear emergency doors.

Through Traffic Jams

When it is time to depart, he inches his 37-foot, 17-ton, yellow-and-chrome vehicle past long rows of buses and onto the adjacent Long Beach Freeway. He heads downtown, through a jammed Civic Center interchange and, near Belmont High School, picks up 42 students whom he will carry to Grant High School in Van Nuys. Later that day, he will return them to the same spot downtown before ending his shift at 4:30 p.m.

The 42-year-old Inglewood resident is one of 2,400 drivers, each of whom often overcome long hours and split shifts to transport as many as 91 restless and noisy youngsters through heavy traffic for the LAUSD.

This year about 1,300 drivers employed by the district and about 1,100 hired by bus companies, which are contracted to LAUSD, are transporting 58,000 youngsters--more than twice as many as were riding during the height of the district’s mandatory desegregation program. Officials attributed the increase to a rise in the birth rate.

Most Work Part Time

The drivers, who are about evenly divided between men and women, earn from $11.04 to $13.76 per hour from the LAUSD, and contract drivers may earn less. Most LAUSD drivers work part time, but can work during the summer driving, planning routes or as mechanics in the district garages. A small percentage of drivers--like teachers--elect to take the summer off.

Although the job is difficult--and some drivers endure daily commutes from as far as Palmdale, Hesperia and Perris--school district officials say that they do it safely. District figures show that during the 1985-86 school year drivers were involved in 48 accidents resulting in injuries during approximately 20.4 million miles of travel.

The figures included no fatalities. In fact, said R. W. (Bud) Dunevant, director of the transportation branch of the Business Services Division of the LAUSD, no child has been killed inside a school district bus since drivers started transporting children approximately 50 years ago.

Dunevant said no figures were kept on children or pedestrians killed outside district buses, or passengers killed in other vehicles, but there have been such fatalities.

In his 2 1/2 years on the job, he said, a school bus ran over an elderly woman downtown and a car collided with a bus in West Los Angeles, killing a car passenger.

During this period LAUSD buses have attracted much less attention than Los Angeles Rapid Transit District vehicles. RTD buses have been involved in at least a dozen crashes and mishaps since mid-March, resulting in injuries to more than 100 RTD passengers and at least one death.

Dunevant cautions, however, that accident rates of school and RTD vehicles can’t be compared because RTD buses make more stops, travel more surface streets and frequently carry passengers standing in aisles--all circumstances conducive to higher accident and injury rates.

One safety device used on school buses--but not RTD vehicles--is a little black box on the dashboard containing a clock and a meter registering revolutions per minute of the engine.

The box, called a tachograph, contains a tamper-proof chart that tells whether the driver idled the bus long enough to do his morning inspection, how fast the bus traveled at all times and whether the bus hit anything.

“It shows how good the driver has been driving,” Preuitt said. “It’s kind of like a heart to the bus.”

While safety records are difficult to compare, LAUSD drivers do err. Barbara V. Davis, personnel services manager of the transportation branch, said that during the 1985-86 school year about 35 drivers lost their state school bus driver certificates because of traffic tickets, failure to pass the state-required biennial physical examination or for other reasons. She said the school district keeps no firm figures on this area.

Davis said 36 drivers were dismissed for problems including absenteeism, dishonesty and violation of rules. Sixty-nine were suspended for from one to 20 days for similar infractions.

She said one of the dismissed drivers removed his tachograph and tried to alter his driving record, swore at his supervisor, and refused instructions from an assistant principal at an elementary school to wait for a child who was late. Also dismissed was a driver who used force on a child, violating district rules, and another who sold children tickets to a rock concert.

Another 143 drivers received warnings for problems relating to attendance, punctuality or failure to follow procedures, Davis added.

No figures were available for disciplinary actions against drivers for contract companies.

‘Precious Cargo’

Davis said she thinks that good drivers “have to recognize at a very deep level that they’re not driving commodities but probably the most precious cargo anybody can ever carry and realize they have the same obligation to those kids as their own.

“They have to have a special relationship with the student: patient, friendly but firm and in charge. They can’t develop close, personal relationships because they are drivers. They’re not teachers or counselors. . . . If they get too close, we fire them.”

Davis said drivers must enforce appropriate conduct on the bus “because any distraction from boisterous or unsafe moves can cause an accident. So they have to have the children’s respect.”

Said Ann Boucher, transportation planning manager for the LAUSD, “I think you need a very patient person--someone who has the ability to make mature or reasoned judgments. That doesn’t mean they have to be old. It just means they have to have some balance and perspective.”

Judgment is necessary to overcome student noise and distraction, which many officials say are the major causes of school bus accidents.

“Part of it is understandable,” said Joe Nauyokas, transportation director for the Long Beach Unified School District. “You have to raise your voice above the engine and the street. One child raises his voice, then a second and third must raise theirs over the other one. That’s how it happens.

“The worst behavior comes at the end of the school day. In many cases the teacher has taken out what she is going to on them, and they take it out on the driver. When they do, junior high students are the worst. Not every day and not every driver, but just enough to cause a problem. You can threaten them and they’re not too easily impressed.”

Virginia Barnes, director of the Pupil Transportation Cooperative which buses Whittier students, said that noise or activity can distract a driver who only has a rear view mirror to see the bus interior.

Fighting Distractions

“Every time you look up, you can’t look out (ahead),” she said. “And if there is noise, if there is movement . . . you’re going to be looking up, not out.”

To find drivers who can perform effectively, the LAUSD screens and trains candidates extensively, doubling the state requirements of 20 hours preparation in a classroom and 20 hours behind the wheel.

Anita Ford, LAUSD chief personnel examiner, said the district sends recruiting bulletins to over 1,000 sites and advertises in local newspapers, but that much recruitment occurs through word of mouth.

Many drivers are hired from contract companies serving the district, Ford said, and a large number are mothers who find that the work corresponds with the school hours of their own children.

Applicants, who must be 18, are fingerprinted and subjected to background checks. Candidates with sex and narcotics convictions are disqualified. Candidates with low-grade misdemeanors are disqualified for three years from the date of conviction; convictions for more serious crimes lead to five- and 10-year disqualifications.

The district also checks driving and accident records for the last five years. Applicants with violations totaling five points are disqualified for five years. (Offenses such as reckless or hit-and-run driving count five points while violations such as running a red light count one.)

Applicants with acceptable records enter a 40-hour class covering map reading, the California Vehicle Code and proper ways to relate to children. Then they spend 40 hours driving an empty school bus in traffic with a certified trainer.

“If they make a drastic error, they are stopped on the spot and the trainer takes over the bus and brings it back and they fail,” Ford said.

Losing Points

“We have very specific standards. If you don’t release a brake at the right time, you can lose points. If you don’t check the mirror at the right time or signal properly, you can lose points. It’s harder than the vehicle driving test. Driving a bus is a lot more complex.”

At the conclusion of the classroom and driving instruction, the candidate takes a 3 1/2-hour written exam. If the candidate passes, he or she receives a California school bus driving certificate, but the new driver must also complete a 42-hour class in pupil management during the first six months of driving.

Records are reviewed annually. If a driver accumulates four points for traffic violations in 12 months, six points in 24 months or eight points in 36 months, he can lose his license for six months.

On this scale, vehicular manslaughter or driving under the influence of alcohol count two points while most other infractions count one.

At 6:10 on a recent evening, Eva Bardales, who works for the Pupil Transportation Cooperative in Whittier, picked up 15 Pioneer High School football players and cheerleaders after practice.

It was raining and after waiting a few minutes for stragglers she stepped outside to wipe the right mirror and opened her window to wipe the mirror on the left side of the bus.

To some boys standing at their seats, she said, “All right, you guys. Sit down. We’re leaving.”

After the boys took their seats, the bus moved onto the northbound 605 Freeway and into rush-hour traffic, long window wipers squeaking against the front windows. The students sat quietly and joked.

At her first stop after leaving the freeway, she stepped out of the bus to wipe the front window; at two other stops she reminded students to cross the street carefully; and at her last stop she told a brother and sister to cross in front of the bus.

As she returned home, Bardales said she tells her students she wants to write a book because she’s gone through “a lot of funny things with kids” since she began driving buses in 1977.

Not all the experiences have been funny, however.

“I love my kids,” she said. “You work with them so long they seem to trust you. When they see you they want to ask you advice.

“Kids even tell me they had a problem with their stepfather who molested them and I reported it. They feel that confidence in you. That makes you feel good.”