COLUMBUS, Ohio — School bus safety is again a topic of conversation at the state level.
Gov. Mike DeWine’s new Ohio School Bus Safety Working Group met for the first time Monday at the Ohio Department of Public Safety headquarters.
The panel was formed in the days following the school bus crash in Springfield that left one student dead and around two dozen more injured on the first day of school. The panel is made up of parents, school leaders and law enforcement.
Monday’s meeting was less business and more about getting introduced and setting goals for the next four meetings. The panel, along with DeWine, were walked through the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s extensive school bus inspection process. OHSP inspects buses twice a year and holds them to their original manufacturer’s standards.
"Our school buses are really the safest mode of transportation that we have to use here in Ohio to get our kids to and from school and to the school functions,” said Andy Wilson, Director of the Ohio Department of Public Safety.
There are more than 19,000 school buses on Ohio roads and they account for fewer than one percent of yearly crashes. Until the crash in Springfield, there hadn’t been a student fatality onboard a bus since 2010, Wilson said.
There continues to be a push by some to add seatbelts on school buses. There are currently nine states requiring them. Ohio lawmakers have proposed legislation in the past but have failed to get enough support to make it happen.
10TV asked DeWine if the Springfield crash is changing the minds of lawmakers when it comes to improving bus safety. He said he couldn’t speak for the legislature, but expects them to take this panel’s recommendations seriously.
“A great thing about a working group like this, that is diverse in their background, and has a lot of expertise, they're going to hear from a lot of experts. Whatever they come up with is going to have a lot of weight. Whatever their specific recommendations are, we have to take those seriously,” DeWine said. “We have to look and those, and as far as I'm concerned, try to implement them."
The working group will meet a total of five times, hearing from safety experts, parents and manufacturers, before presenting its recommendations. Those recommendations are expected by the end of 2023.
Senator Sherrod Brown recently introduced legislation on the federal level with Illinois’s Senator Tammy Duckworth. It would require seat belts and other safety measures on buses nationwide. When asked about that, DeWine said he sees bus safety as something that would be handled at the state level.