Middle School Students get Big Lesson on Bus Safety

Mt. Gilead, OH
Escap­ing from the rear emer­gency door on the smoke filled school bus was a scary thing for Mount Gilead Mid­dle School stu­dent Lane Smith. “I couldn’t see a thing. I was scared.”

It was Bus Safety Week and one of the events orga­nized by the staff was the fill­ing of a bus with (harm­less) smoke by the Mount Gilead Fire Depart­ment. Forty Mid­dle School stu­dents who had brought let­ters of per­mis­sion from their par­ents, were seated in the bus. The rest of the Mid­dle School stu­dent body watched as smoke filled the bus. When it was filled, the emer­gency rear door was opened the stu­dents escaped in an orderly and rapid fashion.

Stephanie Clark, a bus dri­ver, said 25 mil­lion kids ride buses daily in the U.S. and they travel one mil­lion miles in a day. She also said that six buses catch fire each day in the U. S.

Bus fires can be caused by at least four things; (1) power steer­ing and trans­mis­sion flu­ids have a flash point sim­i­lar to gaso­line so while engine oil and diesel fuel are less prone to ignite, these flu­ids drip­ping on the exhaust sys­tem or near the elec­tri­cal spare can ignite quickly. (2) fail­ure to refill the oil in the hub after a brake job; (3) Dual wheels can cre­ate fric­tion and enough heat to start a fire and (4) elec­tri­cal increas­ing due to com­pli­cated cir­cuit breaker on today’s buses.

Safe Havens, International