The National Transportation Safety Board released its final report on the fatal pedestrian crash in the Town of Excelsior, Wisconsin, citing texting as the main cause.

A 2016 Blue Bird school bus operated by the Reedsburg School District stopped on May 12, 2023 to board students in the westbound lane of State Highway 23/33. It is a two-lane, two-way roadway with paved shoulders and a 55-mph speed limit. The school bus slowed, nearly to a stop, and the driver deactivated the flashing amber lights to activate the front and rear flashing red lights. The bus driver also extended the stop arm.

At that point, a 17-year-old motorist behind the wheel of a 2010 Ford F-150 pickup braked and swerved to the right, sideswiping the school bus’ right-rear corner, continuing across the paved shoulder, onto a private driveway, striking and killing a 13-year-old student who was waiting to board. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

The pickup driver, Kevin Green, only had a probationary license at the time of the incident. His response to the slowing and stopped school buses was too late, the NTSB said, because “he was distracted by his cell phone texting activity.” The pickup truck’s high and blunt hood design, combined with its speed at the time of the collision, estimated to be 54 mph, contributed to the student pedestrian’s death, the report adds.

Green was charged with homicide by negligent operation of a vehicle.

NTSB noted that the pickup truck’s final resting position was about 290 feet west of the rear of the school bus, and the student was about 100 feet northwest of the initial impact from the truck. The truck driver had minor injuries, and no other students or the school bus driver were injured. The school bus was not equipped with seatbelts.

Related: Student Hit, Killed at Wisconsin School Bus Stop
Related: Wisconsin Child Fatally Struck by Car While Waiting for School Bus
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Related: NTSB Addresses Back to School Safety in Recent Webinar

The agency found “that a cell phone lock-out system that disables the use of features that are not related to the driving task can reduce cell phone–related distracted driving crashes. Likewise, driver monitoring systems that can detect and alert a distracted driver and bring their attention back to the driving task can also reduce cell phone–related distracted driving crashes.”

Additionally, NTSB said that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) 2013 Driver Distraction Guidelines are “lacking” as the agency does not incorporate advanced technologies that have been introduced in the past 12 years and only focuses on visual-manual distraction of in-vehicle electronic devices.

Meanwhile, the NTSB added that the pickup truck was not equipped with collision avoidance technology such as forward collision warning or automatic emergency braking (AEB) systems. Had the pickup truck been equipped with an AEB system, NTSB said the collision with the school bus could have been avoided or at least mitigated, thus preventing or mitigating the collision with the student.

As a result, the NTSB recommended that NHTSA develop and publish “Driver Distraction Guidelines that address the design of current original equipment in-vehicle electronic devices, portable electronic devices and aftermarket electronic devices to prevent driver distraction.” The agency reiterated its recommendation to cell phone manufacturers to develop a “distracted driving lock-out mechanism that will automatically disable any driver-distracting functions when a vehicle is in motion and install the mechanism in the default setting on all new devices and apply it during major software updates.”

Five more recommendations were reiterated to NHTSA following the crash. NTSB calls for NHTSA to develop and apply testing protocols to assess the performance of forward collision avoidance systems in passenger vehicles at various velocities, including high speed and high velocity-differential. It also calls on the agency to expand the New Car Assessment Program 5-star rating system to include a scale that rates the performance of forward collision avoidance and to develop performance test criteria for vehicle designs that reduce injuries to pedestrians.

NTSB also wants NHTSA to develop performance test criteria for manufacturers to use in evaluating the extent to which automated pedestrian safety systems in light vehicles will prevent or mitigate pedestrian injury and to incorporate pedestrian safety systems, including pedestrian collision avoidance systems and other more passive safety systems, into the New Car Assessment Program.

Ford Motor Company is urged to install forward collision avoidance systems that include, at a minimum, a forward collision warning component, as standard equipment on all new vehicles.

The post NTSB Says Cell Phone Distraction Cause of 2023 Wisconsin Student Fatality appeared first on School Transportation News.

WASHINGTON, DC, – Operation Lifesaver, Inc. (OLI), the national rail safety education nonprofit, is urging the public to recognize and understand how to use Emergency Notification System (ENS) signs – not just on the first-ever Emergency Notification System (ENS) Sign Awareness Day, taking place Tuesday, June 24, 2025, but year-round.

“Located across the U.S. where roadways cross railroad tracks, ENS signs provide a critical connection to railroads in emergencies,” said OLI Executive Director Rachel Maleh. “Recognizing and using this sign in a crisis – like a stuck vehicle or trouble on the tracks – can save lives, when seconds count.”

Each rectangular Blue and White ENS sign displays a unique phone number and crossing ID – vital information that allows the public to report emergencies quickly, when every moment matters.

See trouble on or near the tracks? Safely find the ENS sign, call the number listed and provide the crossing ID. This is also great information to share when calling 911.

If your vehicle is stuck or stalls on the tracks:
Get out immediately. Get far away from the tracks – even if no train is in sight.
Find the ENS sign and call the number listed. Give the dispatcher the crossing ID.
No sign, call 911.

“The sign may be small, but its impact is enormous,” said Maleh. “This campaign empowers people with knowledge that can make all the difference in an emergency. Knowing what to do – and how to act quickly – can prevent a tragedy.”

“ENS Sign Awareness Day is a powerful reminder – but this is a message that matters every day of the year,” Maleh added. “Together, we can stop track tragedies.”

A Nationwide Awareness Effort
ENS Sign Awareness Day — June 24, 2025 — shines a spotlight on the lifesaving importance of the Blue and White Emergency Notification System (ENS) signs posted at railroad crossings. Help raise awareness wherever you are — at home, on the job or out in your neighborhood.

What You Can Do
Engage Locally. Connect with your State Coordinator and attend an ENS community event. Educate your friends, family and community about ENS signs and how to use them. Follow OLI on social and share our daily rail safety education messages.
Volunteer with OLI. Share our ready-to-use PSAs, videos, infographics and social posts. Share the importance of the ENS sign as well as OLI’s FREE RISC Training with your first responders.

About Operation Lifesaver
Operation Lifesaver, Inc. (OLI) is a national #RailSafetyEducation nonprofit dedicated to stopping track tragedies through public awareness and education campaigns as well as a national volunteer network that gives free presentations encouraging safe behavior near tracks and trains. OLI supports the efforts of 47 state programs and the District of Columbia in sharing the rail safety education message. Explore OLI’s virtual library of rail safety materials on the oli.org website. Visit oli.org to learn more, take a rail safety pledge, request free presentations and volunteer. Follow OLI on social media via Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, X and YouTube.

The post Operation Lifesaver, Inc. Launches Inaugural ENS Sign Awareness Day on June 24 Campaign Spotlights Lifesaving Blue and White Signs at Railroad Crossings appeared first on School Transportation News.

In recognition of Distracted Driving Month in April, Bus Gates provided school districts with free products for a hands-on trial of the bus extension arms. School district leaders say the equipment can be part of the solution to combating illegal passing, in conjunction with enforcement cameras and driver training.

Nathanael Spence, coordinator of transportation for Amityville Public Schools in New York, noted that throughout his 18 years in transportation, he’s remained committed to finding innovative, data-driven solutions to reduce illegal passing and improve student safety.

“I’ve had hands-on experience piloting both BusPatrol enforcement cameras and two types of extended stop arms, and I’ve observed firsthand how each tool serves a unique purpose,” he said. “Extended stop arms are like the crossing gates at a railroad, designed to prevent tragedy by stopping motorists before danger strikes. Stop-arm cameras, while valuable, only document what should’ve been stopped. In safety, real protection comes from being proactive, not just recording reactions.”

He added that he believes a comprehensive approach consisting of both enforcement systems and extended stop-arms offers the greatest potential to change driver behavior and protect students. Spence noted Amityville began the school year with two Bus Gate units installed and has since expanded to four.

A Bus Gates pilot project for extended stop arms on school buses was launched in conjunction with Distracted Driving Awareness Month, with the goal of getting the extended stop-arm product in the hands of users.

“When you have that testimonial from the boots on the ground, the folks that are seeing the interaction with cars every single day, there’s just no substitute for that,” said Trevor Clatfelter, co-founder of Bus Gates. “So that allows us to get the product out there even further and get it on school busses even faster.”

 

He added that the bus extension arms are 95 percent effective in reducing illegal passing incidents.

 

Even though the program launched in April, it will remain available to school districts on a limited basis, pending inventory. Clatfelter noted that districts are not required to send the stop arm back and can choose to continue to use the product at no charge.

 

“We don’t care if your fleet has five buses or 50 buses or 500 buses,” he added. “We want to get the product out there to make every school child’s day safer.”

 

The product is added to the existing stop arm installed on the school bus. Bus Gate’s longest product extends six and half feet from the side of the bus, weighs less than three pounds, and includes flashing LED lights on the stop sign. Installation, Clatfelter said, 15 to 30 minutes.

“It is a super simple, easy install, and they’re pretty universal to go on most stop arms,” he said, adding that his company found a couple instances where modifications had to be made.

Bus Gates offers a shorter stop-arm extender for the rear, if districts have dual stop arms.

 

For liability purposes, Clatfelter said the extension is part of the original, federally mandated stop arm and is therefore part of the school bus as well. In states that allow Bus Gates use, hitting the bus extension arm is considered the same as hitting the stop-arm or the school bus itself, and would all result in the same penalties.

 

“When we go to trade shows, we want to demonstrate the effectiveness of the product, but it’s obnoxious,” said Chris McCloud, founding partner at Bus Gates marketing agency Pendulum PR “It’s obnoxious in especially an indoor setting, and it is that way so that in inclement weather, during the day, foggy conditions, the lights on the product cut through all of that. So, it doesn’t have to be a perfect day or near dusk for the product to be really effective. … [W]hat we’re hearing and seeing from the school districts that are using the product is ta massive reduction in the problem, which is people driving around the bus in the first place.”

 

While other technologies exist to increase safety at and around school buses, Clatfelter said, “Bus gates prevent, cameras prosecute.”

 

McCloud added that Bus Gates are a proactive product designed to stop a motorist from illegally passing a school bus, “Whether it’s on purpose or, and in most cases, not.

 

“We all choose to believe that the majority of the people that illegally pass a bus are not doing so with the intent to harm anybody,” he continued. “But at the end of the day, cameras don’t stop the activity from happening. Now, they might be able to catch some people by grabbing their license plate and then serving them a ticket, which hopefully then says, ‘Hey, I’m not going to do this again because I don’t want to pay the fine.’ But ultimately, it’s better to just prevent the activity, reducing the danger from happening in the first place. That’s what Bus Gates is trying to do.”

“We’ve observed a significant reduction in passing motorist incidents on those buses,” Spence said. “Being located in Suffolk County [Long Island], where BusPatrol enforcement cameras are also installed, we’ve been able to use the combined data from both systems to assess the impact, and the results are compelling. Buses equipped with both extended stop arms and enforcement cameras have shown an almost complete drop in illegal pass-bys.”

These findings have encouraged fleetwide implementation, which will be completed in phases by the school district’s contractor. Spence noted that year one will consist of equipping all large buses with Bus Gates, followed by all small buses in year two.

“Once the full rollout is complete, I’m eager to leverage year-over-year BusPatrol passing motorist data to perform a comparative analysis,” he said. “This will allow us to clearly measure the long-term impact of extended stop arms across our entire fleet and share meaningful results with stakeholders and other districts considering similar initiatives.”

Spence shared that his background of working with another stop-arm extension company gave him strong points of comparison.

“Bus Gates offered a similar safety benefit at a fraction of the cost, making the opportunity to outfit our entire fleet both fiscally responsible and operationally feasible,” he said. “The decision ultimately wasn’t just about adopting new technology. It was about leading with intention, maximizing our resources and setting a statewide example in school transportation safety.”

He shared that school bus drivers have found the easy-to-operate product sends a clear message to motorists of stop means stop. “That visibility alone has created a stronger sense of security during student loading and unloading,” Spence said, adding that community members expressed strong support in an NBC New York article in October.

“Since then, we’ve received inquiries from coordinators and transportation supervisors in neighboring districts who are eager to learn more about the technology and its effectiveness,” he continued. “Bus Gates has sparked not just compliance, but conversation, and that’s exactly the kind of awareness we need to drive long-term change in motorist behavior.”

Meanwhile, Bryan Broome, transportation operations manager for Parkway School District in Missouri, said when he became the fleet manager a few years ago, his director at the time discussed the issue of people running stop arms, which created an unsafe condition for the students.

That put a bug in Broome’s ear, and while attending an industry trade show he saw Bus Gates demonstrating its product.

“I just personally felt that Bus Gates seemed like the best solution as far as ease of install as well as (being) less intrusive on the bus,” he said. “It’s an issue that we have nationally where people are running stop arms. It’s horrible.”

He noted that some routes experienced two to three illegal passers a day. He noted that the Bus Gates were first installed on these routes, which cut infractions to about two to three violations a week.

“We stopped the majority of them,” he said. “Then we did some more investigating and found out that we needed [to do more training] on bus stop etiquette, of not coming to a stop and expecting the other cars to be able to stop immediately. … We had to work with our drivers as far as reminding them and working with them on bus stop etiquette and procedures.”

He noted that Bus Gates is not the sole solution but an additional tool to increase safety.

Broome said that Bus Gates were initially installed on six school buses. The school district began installing the units fleetwide on school buses earlier this school year and is expected to finish by the end of the summer.

“When we got the six units, I only put the arms on three buses for the first month or so, just to kind of try them out and see,” he said. “And then after about the first two or three days, I had drivers pretty much climbing over each other trying to get one installed on their bus. The drivers love them. They are looking for any tool that they could possibly get to help them keep their students safe.”

He also spoke about the concerns that motorists may hit the extended stop arm. “That is why we pushed the bus stop etiquette for the [school bus] drivers. It’s not just coming to a stop as fast as possible and throwing your arms out because sometimes it takes people a minute to react,” he shared.

Related: Combatting Illegal Passing with Awareness, Technology
Related: Rhode Island District Adds School Bus Video to Reduce Illegal Passing
Related: Crossing Arms: Do They Work?

Instead, district leaders reminded drivers to be defensive rather than aggressive with the stop-arms. “People make mistakes while driving. Sometimes people aren’t paying attention to the bus,” he said. “So let’s give them a chance to stop, or if they’re going to speed around us, let them speed around you, but we need to work with our students to make sure that they understand that they shouldn’t approach the bus until the stop arm is out, and then the door is open and the driver signals them to cross and or board the bus.”

He said school bus drivers were trained to initiate the stop by first activating the yellow warning lights which indicate to the motorist that the school bus is stopping, whereas the reds mean the school bus is stopped.

“We still need to use the tool of the Bus Gates as well as the driver’s best judgment on when to signal the students to cross and board the bus,” he said. “If we just put a tool on the bus, it doesn’t mean they know how to use it properly. And if, for instance, [bus drivers] do come to a stop too short or they don’t have their yellows on for a long enough time, then if we ever had an incident where a driver struck the stop arm extension we could be liable for any damages because we weren’t using the best procedure to initiate the stop.”

The post Are Extended Stop Arms Part of Solution to Illegal School Bus Passing? appeared first on School Transportation News.

DES MOINES, Iowa — The National Congress on School Transportation completed a day early, something that hasn’t happened “in recent history,” steering committee chair Mike LaRocco told delegates when the final gavel sounded.

On-site chair Charlie Hood, a former NASDPTS president and retired state director for Florida, added Tuesday at the conclusion of the 17th NCST that it was the hard work of the committees, leadership team and delegates “who understood the importance of this process,” that attributed to the expedited timeline.

NCST is scheduled to meet every five years to update the National School Transportation Specifications and Procedures. The congress last met in 2015 and was scheduled to meet in 2020, but it was canceled due to COVID-19. At this year’s congress, most delegates were newcomers to the process. Forty-eight states were in attendance, there were no representatives from New Hampshire, North Dakota and Washington, D.C.

Especially noteworthy was the quick passage of crossing arms or gates affixed to the front bumper of school buses. The proposed change during the School Bus Specifications deliberations stated, “school buses shall be equipped with a crossing control arm mounted on the right side of the front bumper. When opened, this arm shall extend in a line parallel to the body side and aligned with the right front wheel.”

The delegation passed the proposal by a vote of 34 to 13 without discussion. It was the first proposal to be read at the congress Monday morning. Currently, 26 states require crossing arms in their state specifications or regulations.

Related: Crossing Arms: Do They Work?
Related: Canada Becomes First Country to Mandate External School Bus Surveillance Feeds
Related: McManamon Citing ‘Personal and Professional Reasons’ Relinquishes NCST Chair
Related: Updated: NCST Takes on Issue of Non-School Bus Transportation

Two proposals failed in School Bus Specifications, the first being a requirement that school buses have two stop-arms on the left-hand side, one toward the front and one in the rear. State delegates noted that while dual stop arms are generally a good idea, they should remain optional as because of the price increase per bus. State delegates cited no data to support this assertion.

A Utah delegate noted the Beehive State already requires two stop-arms on the left side, but that hasn’t seemed to deter illegal passers. A New Jersey delegate added student transporters there, too, “found that the second stop-arm is irrelevant and has no affect whatsoever on people stopping or not. It should be an option.”

Proposal 25, the requirement for LEDs on “all exterior body/chassis lighting with the exception of head/park/turn combination assemblies,” also failed. A delegate from Pennsylvania noted that no financial impact of the requirement as listed on the proposal was an inaccurate statement. Another delegate from Wyoming noted that LEDs may be the current technology but inserting them into the specs would beholden districts to the technology, even if future technology proves to be a better option. A Texas delegate agreed, noting that the word “shall” restricts school districts from using improved technology. The proposal failed by a vote of 45 opposed to 2 in favor.

New to NCST this year was the alternative transportation committee for non-school-bus vehicles, a first for deliberations. The states approved criteria for driver credentials, driver training, vehicle design/equipment and special education policy considerations.

“The 17th National Congress on School Transportation has successfully completed its work,” LaRocco told School Transportation News. “Thank you to the NCST Steering Committee, all writing committees, the editing, technical, appendices, Terms and Definitions Committee and resolution committees, and most importantly the 48 state delegates that were present.”

According to conference attendees, six states (North Dakota, South Dakota, Maine, Kansas, Minnesota, and Louisiana) currently adopt the National School Transportation Specifications and Procedures as written into regulations or law. This is a decrease from the last conference in 2015, when 11 states adopted the manual. School Transportation News was seeking to confirm these number at this report.

The dates and location of the 18th NCST were not announced. State delegates were surveyed about whether they felt meeting every five years was appropriate, or if they would rather meet every two or three years. Survey results were not available at this report.

The post National Congress Finishes Early After 10-Year Hiatus appeared first on School Transportation News.