School Bus Safety: Don’t Turn That Bus Around

School buses are big.  Really big! Whenever a school bus needs to turn around, especially when backing up, the potential for an accident is a lot higher.  There are quite a few blind spots at the back of the bus that could prevent the driver from seeing a parked car or even a child.

When you are creating bus routes, it’s in your best interest to create them in a way that does not require the bus to turn around.  Sometimes this means that the bus needs to drive around the block or pull into a large parking lot (like a grocery store) to turn around.

It may not be possible to eliminate all of the turnaround situations, but the more you can eliminate, the safer your bus routes will be.  School bus transportation management software, like BusBoss, can generate routes that prevent your school buses from turning around.  With BusBoss, you can configure each vehicle for its ability to turn around.  Often times it is possible (and safe) for a small special needs van to turn around, but not possible for a large 72 passenger bus.  When you configure the individual vehicles to allow or not allow turnarounds, BusBoss will use the configuration setting assigned to each bus when optimizing school bus routes.

If you are a school transportation director, and you’re concerned about safety, you should learn more about BusBoss.  You’ll see how easy it is to create routes that do not require the bus to turn around.  To learn more about this feature and many others, please download the BusBoss product guide.