Pedestrian Injuries and Deaths Among School Bus Riders Media Scan Data
Source: Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center (PBIC)
Whether walking to school, riding a bike, traveling by private vehicle, or riding public transit or a yellow school bus, every student is a pedestrian for at least some portion of their trip between home and school. The circumstances and nature of pedestrian injuries and deaths experienced by K-12 students walking between home and the school bus stop and while waiting for the school bus merit special consideration given that approximately one-third of K-12 students use this mode.
No data collection system exists to capture information about pedestrian crashes that occur among children walking to a bus stop or when a bus is not present at a bus stop, leaving a void in the full picture of pedestrian injuries and deaths for yellow school bus riders. Crashes involving children are very likely to receive media attention. As such, the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center (PBIC) conducted a media scan of student pedestrian injuries and deaths sustained traveling to or at school bus stops from January 2018 to March 2020 in order to create a fuller picture of the characteristics of pedestrian injuries and deaths for this group with the full understanding that the scan would not necessarily capture every crash. Preventing Pedestrian Injuries and Deaths Among School Bus Riders provides a summary of these characteristics and patterns related to child pedestrian crashes near, or en route to, bus stops. The original media scan below has been updated to include crashes through September 2021.
The research team used keywords related to school bus crashes (school bus, crash, hit, walk, wait, child, and injury) to scan across newspaper and broadcast media. Based on this review, the team compiled a list of media stories in which a K-12 student was struck, injured, or killed by a motor vehicle while walking to or from a school bus stop, waiting at a school bus stop, or boarding a school bus.
The table below includes details captured on each crash event and the individual victims based on the report including the date, time, location, vehicle type, school bus presence, community and road type, severity of crash, specific circumstances, and victim age. Details are based solely on media coverage and, in some instances, use of Google Street View.
