Where does information about school bus fatalities come from?
There are three major sources: the National Safety Council, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the Kansas Dept. of Education. The NSC offers both fatality and injury data, though its data is based on projections and extrapolations. Through the Fatal Accident Reporting System, or FARS as it is known, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration collects data on all highway fatalities–automobiles, trucks, buses, pedestrians, bycylists, etc.–in the nation. The agency has very strict criteria a fatality must meet to be included in its database. For instance, from FARS we know that an average of 120 motorists are killed annually when their automobile runs into a school bus. That’s the most common fatality related to school buses. The annual School Bus Loading & Unloading Zone Survey by the Kansas Dept. of Education, published in December or early January, reports the number of fatal accidents in the so called “danger zone” around the school bus. The danger zone
