By Ashley M. Casey
Staff Writer
Last Tuesday, dozens of school bus drivers gingerly tiptoed through an overturned bus in front of the Baldwinsville Central School District office. But it was no accident — the drivers were participating in a special safety training event.
“B’ville goes above and beyond what the state mandates to have the best trained drivers in the state,” said Dana Nelson, BCSD’s assistant transportation supervisor.
The Liverpool Central School District, which Nelson said held a similar training event last year, helped B’ville topple the bus onto its side Aug. 21.
The next day, drivers walked through the bus, dodging dangling seatbelts and peering through the emergency hatches.
The New York State Education Department enlists 1,000 certified instructors to administer annual safety training, but much of the training is done by watching videos. Baldwinsville’s rollover demo is the latest in the district’s more interactive approach to driver safety training.
Lisa Weber, who has been a bus driver for 17 years, said the drivers watched training videos showing what a bus rollover would look like, but walking through the bus was “very eye-opening.”
“You have a totally different perspective to walk through that bus and see what it’s like,” Weber said. “You can really see the impact on the children because a lot of kids don’t wear their seatbelts. You never know — some are going to be on the floor, some will be tangled up, should you move kids?”
Emily Nearhood, who has been driving a school bus for about five years, said the district previously held a training session simulating a bus filled with smoke. A fog machine clouded the bus and drivers were tasked with finding a stuffed rabbit the size of a child hidden among the seats.
“You have to stay low, kind of like a firefighter,” she said. “You couldn’t even see an inch in front of you.”
Of the bus rollover, Nearhood said, “It’s pretty cool how they can do that.”
The training prepares drivers for scary situations, the drivers said. Nearhood said she is fortunate that the only incident she has had as a driver is navigating total white-out conditions on Vann Road, but Weber’s bus caught on fire about a decade ago.
“It was a defect in the wiring that caught the grease on fire,” she said.
Fortunately, there were no children on board, and Weber made it out safely.
“I’m glad they’re getting back to the interactive stuff,” she said of the district’s safety training.
