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Operator Volume 50 Issue 1 • January 2020
MSBOA Response to Recent Letter in Star Tribune The MSBOA board voted to respond to a Star Tribune open letter from the Democratic Congressmen. Both letters are included below. Minnesota's Democratic Members of Congress Pen Letter to Agency Over School Bus Safety The Federal Officials Want the NHTSA to Step Up Efforts. By Faiza Mahamud Star Tribune NOVEMBER 22, 2019 — 9:17PM Minnesota’s Democratic members of Congress sent a letter Friday to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) seeking new steps to ensure school bus safety. “Minnesota families deserve to know that the school buses that students ride in are safe,” the members wrote. In the letter to NHTSA’s acting administrator James Owens, members of the delegation requested additional information on what the agency can do to improve its oversight of the maintenance and safety of school buses. They also requested data on the number of Minnesota students injured on school buses each year, the number of recalls the agency issues annually and what it’s doing to coordinate with school bus providers to ensure that information about safety inspections and recalls is readily available to parents. The lawmakers also asked whether NHTSA needed additional resources to improve its oversight of school buses to ensure the safety of students. The letter cited a Star Tribune report showing that nearly 1 in 8 school buses operated by First Student, Minnesota’s largest student transportation company, failed to meet state safety standards this year. Several thousand Minnesota students ride the 1,160 First Student school buses inspected so far in 2019. The reports from those inspections, obtained by the Star Tribune, show 12% of First Student buses flunked the test for what the state deemed serious safety defects such as brakes, flat tires and steering problems. Buses could also fail for multiple, less serious problems, such as a broken headlamp, loose seats or an exhaust leak.
By GARRETT REGAN December 18, 2019 - 5:37 PM On behalf of the 120 school bus companies that comprise the Minnesota School Bus Operators Association (MSBOA), I want parents to know that the inspection results reported in a recent article (“Dems pen letter to agency over safety of school buses,” Nov. 23) are not a representation of the entire profession, and that the No. 1 goal of our industry is to ensure that Minnesota students get to and from school safely and efficiently. The MSBOA represents Minnesota’s privately owned school bus contractors, which operate about 6,500 buses statewide. Our members represent an average of more than 45 years of experience in the industry and are responsible for more than 400,000 students transported 233,000 miles per day. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, students are 70 times safer taking a school bus to school than a passenger car. The state of Minnesota has high safety standards for school buses — which we believe it should — and school bus companies meet these standards time and again. The Nov. 22 article focused on the failure rate of annual school bus inspections. Conducted by the Minnesota State Patrol, these extensive inspections are important for the long-term maintenance and safety of school buses. But it’s important to note that a bus may be marked a “failure” for something routine that needs to be fixed before the bus is used again; it doesn’t mean that an unsafe bus continues to be used. Parents should also know that the standard in our industry is for pre-trip inspections to be conducted every single morning before each school bus leaves the garage. This takes about 10 to 15 minutes and allows school bus drivers to identify any issues that need to be fixed before the bus can be operated. If the issue can’t be fixed immediately, a substitute bus will be used. Continued on Page10.
See Inside for more information on MN School Bus Safety Expo