Pew Trust Researchers Reveal Danger of Impaired School Bus Drivers on the Road in Indiana and Illinois
Last week, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) published results from the first month of the new federal Commercial Driver’s License Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse. The agency’s clearinghouse reports around 8000 commercial drivers have tested positive as being impaired by drugs or alcohol since January 6, 2020.
The federal Commercial Driver Clearinghouse is an online database that tracks CDL drivers who fail drug and alcohol testing. The site identifies a failed test result and then automatically reports it not only to FMCSA but also to the trucker’s employer, as well as law enforcement and state licensing agencies. The goal, of course, is to get impaired drivers off the road for their own safety as well as others who share the roads with them.
For more on the new commercial driver clearinghouse, read our discussion in “Fighting Against Fatal Truck Accidents and Deadly Truck Crashes: FMCSA Clearinghouse Registration Begins,” and “FMCSA Intensifies Efforts to Stop Drugged Driving by Truckers: Random Drug Testing of Commercial Truck Drivers Jumps to 50% in 2020.”
Who Is Tracking Impaired School Bus Drivers?
The FMCSA Clearinghouse does include tracking school bus drivers, as they must have a commercial driver’s license (CDL) in order to operate a school bus. The media focus has been on semi-truck drivers and truckers being tracked by the Clearinghouse. This does not mean that there is not a national problem of impaired drivers getting behind the wheel of school buses in this country.
A February 2020 research study by the Pew Charitable Trust, published in its Stateline blog, reveals findings that 118 school bus drivers have been discovered as driving a school bus while impaired by drugs or alcohol in the past four years. Read the two-part report here:
- Part One: School Bus Drivers Put Kids’ Lives at Risk; and
- Part Two: ‘Every State Should Be Passing A Law to Deal With This’.
The Pew researchers report that “…no one at the state or federal level appears to track such cases. And many states don’t even know how many school bus drivers have failed random drug or alcohol tests.”
Both Indiana and Illinois were found to have had police who arrested or cited school bus drivers for allegedly driving a school bus while impaired by drugs or alcohol.
Safety Advocates’ Recommendations in Response to Pew Trust Study
The Illinois-based National Safety Council, together with the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, have responded to this February 2020 research report with a laundry list of changes to combat the danger of impaired school bus drivers behind the wheel. These include:
(1) school districts have drug-free workplace policies that include school bus drivers;
(2) education of school district employees so they can identify signs or symptoms of impairment in their fellow employees, including school bus drivers;
(3) placing ignition interlock technology on school buses so that the school bus cannot be driven if the driver’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) exceeds the legal limit;
(4) new state laws mandating that school bus drivers cannot use alcohol at least eight (8) hours before driving a school bus; and
(5) requiring that all new school buses have three-point seat belts installed for the protection of schoolchildren who may be victims of a school bus crash.
The FMCSA Clearinghouse and School Bus Drivers
Safety advocacy groups also support the federal government’s new national clearinghouse efforts to collect information on drivers who may have incurred alcohol- or drug-related violations. They support its required use for school bus drivers.
However, the Pew Trust researchers point out that school buses are different than commercial semi-trucks and big rigs. School bus drivers are not that easily tracked within the FMCSA Clearinghouse. Why?
For one thing, while federal law requires a CDL driver to be tested if someone has a “reasonable suspicion” they are impaired by drugs or alcohol while on the job, this requires someone to witness the driver. The reality is that “eyeballing the driver” is not that easy when school bus drivers are involved for two reasons.
- First, the large school districts have hundreds of school buses serving their schoolchildren and “inspecting every driver would be difficult.”
- Second, in some parts of the country, particularly in rural locations, the school bus driver takes their school bus home at the end of their work day. Who inspects the rural school bus driver?
Impairment Is Not Always Alcohol or Recreational Drugs
Finally, while the Pew Trust Researchers and the safety groups are busy discussing the very real danger of a drunk school bus driver behind the wheel, or a school bus driver high on recreational drugs, the risk of a serious or fatal school bus crash is not limited to these types of impairment.
As we have discussed before, there are school bus drivers who have been involved in school bus accidents who never considered they were acting in a dangerous manner. They were not drinking on the job. They weren’t taking drugs for enjoyment or recreation.
Impairment and the compromised ability to drive a motor vehicle of any type can occur when the driver takes over-the-counter medications or other drugs designed to help them feel better or to deal with the symptoms of a cold, flu, or cough.
Two crash examples we provided earlier involved school bus drivers (one was from Peoria) who took some NyQuil because they felt bad from flu or cold symptoms and just wanted to get to work and do their job. See, Impaired Driving in Indiana and Illinois: It’s More than Driving Drunk.
Once again, the reality is that impairment must be recognized to include not only alcoholic beverages and opioids but readily-available and popular over-the-counter, non-prescription medications available at convenience stores, gas stations, grocery aisles, and more.
For details, read: FDA Warns of Over-the-Counter (“OTC”) Medications and Drugged Driving Accidents.
Impaired Drivers: Justice for School Bus Crash Victims
Children who rely upon their school bus to take them to and from school are some of the most vulnerable passengers on our roads today. Parents entrust their sons and daughters to the school bus driver and assume that driver will keep their kids safe.
When a child is seriously hurt or killed in a school bus crash, there must be an investigation into the causes of the bus accident. Was it caused by defective equipment or a lack of maintenance or repair of the bus? Was there a road hazard? Was the school bus driver at fault?
In these cases, the school bus crash victims may need to pursue claims for justice not only against the school bus driver and the school district that owns the bus, but there may be legal liability to be found with third-party repair companies, parts manufacturers, and other entities.
Impairment of the school bus driver must be considered in each school bus accident and efforts need to be made in both Indiana and Illinois to protect our schoolchildren against an impaired school bus driver getting behind the wheel of the school bus.
However, these efforts need to be advanced not only regarding school bus drivers who are driving with BAC levels that make them legally drunk or those who are high from opioids or marijuana, but also those school bus drivers who may be ignorant of the risks involved in taking so many of the over-the-counter medications sold today in both Indiana and Illinois.
For more on school bus crashes in Indiana and Illinois, read:
- Fatal Bus Crashes in Indiana and Illinois
- Bus Accidents in Indiana and Illinois: School Bus Crashes and Metro Bus Accidents
- School Bus Crashes in Indiana: Proposed New 2019 Laws to Make School Buses Safer for Children.
Our schoolchildren need to be safe while riding school buses in Illinois and Indiana, especially from an impaired driver. Please be careful out there!
