How do we really drive the numbers down?
We need to face some very hard facts. We are becoming more and more distracted. Our children are, and will continue to be in harm’s way, as we add more cars, more drivers and distraction to our daily lives: unless we do something really different from what we are currently doing today.
Consider the millions of dollars that are spent every year to prevent drunk driving. A host of high-profile, high-cost campaigns are run nation-wide to spread awareness and encourage responsible driver behavior.
Consider also that drunk driving prevention campaigns and awareness programs have been in wide-spread circulation for the past 30 years. And yet, every day almost 30 people in the United States die in drunk driving related crashes. In 2017, one person died every 48 minutes. Drunk driving related deaths have fallen by one third over this 30 year timespan, but drunk driving continues to claim an average of 10,000 lives a year.
It’s clear that education and the resulting repercussions of bad decisions (fines, loss of license and even jail time) help effect positive change. But it’s also clear from the drunk driving information shown above that change takes time and in this case time is not on our side. One more child injury or death is one too many.
Eight students were killed in school bus loading and unloading accidents in the 2016-2017 school year. This number is double that of the number of students killed in similar situations during the 2015-2016 school years.
Given that we are approaching this problem as we always have — trying to make passing motorists aware of the laws around how and when it’s safe and legal to pass a school bus and to recognize and know the expected behaviors when it’s not safe to pass the bus, the reality is that it will take a long time before we are able to reach our targets of Vision Zero.
In order to make a real and impactful difference that results in a reduction in incidents today, not years from now, we need to approach this problem differently.
At Safe Fleet, we believe that approach includes a shift from solely trying to control the behavior of passing motorists to one in which we actively engage with the students directly. We’re using radar technology and predictive analytics to monitor oncoming vehicle traffic around the school bus. Our technology takes an innovative approach by gauging the risk of stop-arm violations and proactively issuing audible and visual warnings inside and outside the bus. Both the driver and the students are notified when it’s deemed unsafe to cross.
Our goal is to prevent the accident before it occurs and help springboard us all towards Vision Zero. And to do this, we are doing things differently.
For more information on Safe Fleet’s Predictive Stop-Arm product or to learn more about Safe Fleet’s Smart Safety Solutions™, please contact info@safefleet.net
