LoginThe Human Element of Collision Avoidance
National School Bus Safety Week each October is another opportunity to remind motorists about the tremendous responsibility we all share around school buses and school children.
Stop for the red lights. Obey the stop arm. Slow down in school zones. Watch for children at bus stops and when crossing streets. We know the messages. But knowing what to do matters only if we are paying enough attention to recognize when we need to do it.
That is especially relevant this month. We examine the rapidly advancing collision-avoidance technology reaching school buses. Automatic braking, lane-related warnings, connected vehicle technology, cameras and other systems are increasingly capable of recognizing hazards, alerting drivers and, in some cases, reacting faster than a human can.
Similar technology is commonplace in our personal vehicles. My car can warn me if I drift from my lane or get too close to another vehicle. Other vehicles can automatically brake when their systems detect an impending collision.
All of that is remarkable and welcome. We also need to do more to avoid collisions the
old-fashioned, human way: Pay attention.
Working remotely has changed some of my own habits. Without a traditional commute to and from an office, I find myself conducting more conversations with work associates while driving to appointments, picking up the kids or running errands. Even before remote work became commonplace, I frequently spoke with school transportation professionals during their morning or afternoon commutes.
It feels productive. Why waste 20 or 30 minutes in the car when we can knock out a conversation? Because our attention has limits, that’s why.
Earlier this year at STN EXPO East, speaker Bret Brooks spoke about the difference between being careless and caring less. Being careless means failing to give something the attention it deserves. Caring less can be intentional. Sometimes we need to give less attention to things that aren’t as important at a particular moment so we can devote more attention to what is.
Behind the wheel is a great place to put that into practice. That work call might be important. The meeting might be approaching. The conversation might save some time later. But none of it is more important than what is happening outside the windshield.
April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month, but we can’t wait until then to practice mindfulness. Distracted driving needs to be top of mind every month, week, day, hour, minute and second of the year, especially in school zones and wherever school buses are loading and unloading children.
A Governors Highway Safety Association survey STN reported on last month found that 46 percent of parents whose children ride school buses said their child had experienced a close call involving dangerous driving near a school bus or in a school zone. Across all surveyed parents, 36 percent reported such an experience involving their own child. Distracted driving and speeding were among the dangerous behaviors reported.
Those numbers demand our attention. Certainly, if we take a call while driving, hands-free should be the minimum. Don’t hold the phone. And there is absolutely no justification for reading or sending texts, checking email or scrolling while you are operating a vehicle.
But hands-free does not mean distraction-free. A conversation can occupy our thoughts. So can drowsiness, passengers, food, navigation systems, vehicle controls or simply mentally working through the next deadline or problem. Even other traffic on the road.
Meanwhile, a school bus may be stopping ahead. A child may be approaching a crosswalk. Traffic may suddenly slow. Vehicle-to-everything technology promises to alert motorists when they come upon a school bus stop. The technology is impressive but still in it’s infancy, as it is only available in a figurative handful of vehicles. It will take decades for all vehicles on the road to communicate with each other and road infrastructure.
One of the most important observations this month comes from Rosalyn Vann-Jackson of Broken Arrow Public Schools in Oklahoma. She notes that the safest technology isn’t necessarily technology that removes the human from the equation. It’s technology that helps the human make a safer decision sooner.
Let’s continue developing and adopting technology that gives motorists and school transportation operators another layer of protection on the road. But we cannot surrender our own first line of collision avoidance in the process.
Editor’s Note: As reprinted from the October 2026 issue of School Transportation News.
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