If you’ve read my first ever blog post, you’ve learned why I decided to open a shop and sell safety reminder products to help parents remember their child is in the car. This mission to raise awareness of heat related deaths due to children and/or pets being left in a hot vehicle is personal to me and important, after I had my own scary experience which I wrote about in that post. Now in this post, I am going to discuss the tragedy of a child dying after being left in a school bus or van pool, and offer tips to help bus drivers, van pool drivers, schools, parents and caretakers ensure that this 100% preventable accident will never happen again.
During my research for this blog post, I found some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the number of heat related deaths due to a child being left in a hot vehicle has gone down since record highs in 2017 and 2018, as shown in the chart below. (This chart is found on the National Safety Council’s excellent NSC Injury Facts website.)
What I wonder is how much of the lower count from 2020- 2022 is a result of decreased driving and kids being schooled from home during the Covid Pandemic – but a victory is a victory, and I am happy to see those lower numbers.
The bad news is that my Google search revealed that there have been too many recent instances of young children dying as a result of being left unattended in a school bus or van pool. This is even more of an issue with today’s climate bringing hotter days for longer periods of time.
These results make it clear that parents, caretakers, school administrators, private and public transportation companies, and bus and van pool drivers must work together to ensure the safe transport of our children to locations such as schools, head start programs, day care centers, long-term care facilities and other places that use bus or van transports. The transportation vehicles must be safe and free of violations, and have passed all necessary vehicle safety codes. Drivers must not only possess current drivers’ licenses, but also pass background and driving records checks. Drivers should be trained not only for the transportation of children to and from locations, but also be trained in CPR and how to handle cases of emergency.
Each school bus and van pool transportation system should have an accountability system of checks and balances to ensure all children are accounted for before the drivers have exited the vehicle. The receiving facilities should also have an accountability system of checks and balances in alignment with the transportation company’s. We must check and double check to ensure that all children are off the bus or van when it arrives at its designated location! There is other good news though, and is that these deaths caused by leaving a child in a hot car, school bus, or van pool are 100 % preventable! With proper systems of checks and balances in place, no child – or pet – need ever succumb to heat related ailments or death ever again.
The thought of a child dying anywhere brings pain to my heart…I want to be a part of the solution! To that end, below you will find 5 Tips to help remind parents, school staff, transportation companies, and bus and van pool drivers to ensure all children have exited the vehicle upon arrival at their destination. I’ve also created safety reminder products available for purchase in the Liz Daniel Emporium, such as visual safety reminders like buttons, key chains and phone cases, and more. Together, we can do a lot to prevent the unnecessary and 100% preventable deaths of children being left unattended in a hot vehicle!
5 TIPS TO HELP ENSURE ALL CHILDREN RIDING THE SCHOOL BUS ARE ACCOUNTED FOR:
- Focus first – Clear your mind and focus on the duties and responsibility of the job: getting the precious cargo of children safe to their predetermined location. Minimize distractions – put away your phone, refrain from texting, browsing the web, or making phone calls until your duties are complete and all children are accounted for.
- Utilize a check-in and check-out accountability system – For example you could incorporate color codes, assigned seating, temporary stickers or photos with the name of each child – whatever system works so that you will know with certainty who is scheduled to be on the bus. Learn the names of the children and their personality traits as possible, for example who falls asleep and who does not, who is more active and who is less active during the ride.
- Double check – At the beginning of the transport job count the number of children loaded on the bus using your check-in accountability system. Then do a second passenger check before you begin the drive. When you arrive at the destination, make sure the receiving school’s check-in figures match up with the driver’s figures.
- Do a visual walk through after the children exit the vehicle – In addition to your check-out procedure, physically walk through the transport bus or van, being careful to lay eyes on every seat in the vehicle. Small children may be obstructed from view by the seats, so check every seat carefully. Toddlers and babies in a car seat cannot walk off the van or bus, they must be carried off.
- Compare your check-out with the destination’s check-in – Conduct an assessment check with the destinations’s receiving staff to ensure that all children are accounted for and in their proper places. Use photo identification when possible. If there is any discrepancy, walk through the vehicle again and check the facility until all children have been accounted for!
I want to do whatever I can to save the precious lives of children, and to prevent serious injuries or worse. I want to help parents, drivers, caregivers and the public to remember they have precious cargo aboard, when it’s all too easy to forget a quiet child sleeping soundly in their seat. I want to help people to avoid the tragedy of leaving their beloved child or pet in a hot car, van, or school bus. This is my mission, and this is why I’ve designed safety reminder products and visual reminders to help us all prevent this 100% preventable situation. Please visit the Liz Daniel Emporium and check out the Safety Reminders collection of products designed to remind us not to leave our children in a hot vehicle, ever!
Liz Daniel Emporium 