There is nothing more important than children's safety in Minnesota. Studies have found that school buses maintain the best safety record of any form of ground transportation. It is nearly 2000 times safer to ride a school bus than any family car.

There are several reasons buses have exemplary safety records. Including:

• Extensive Driver Training (State and Federal Training Regulations)
• Pedestrian Safety Devices (8-Way Light System, Crossing Gates, Strobe lights)
• Passenger Seating and Crash Protection (Compartmentalization)
• Body Joint Strength (Specially reinforced steel frames are in all school buses)
• Structural Strength of Buses in Rollover Accidents (Buses will hold 1.5 times their weight on the roof)

Accidents are rare because school districts and the school bus contractors who serve them work hard to train drivers to avoid accidents. Operating a fleet of yellow school buses is not an easy task. The Federal government regulates rigid vehicle standards and driver training. The state of Minnesota brings those rules to life with operational standards that go further and govern:

• Training Mandates
• Evacuation Drills
• Safe Ridership Programs
• Loading and Unloading Laws and Procedures
• Vehicle Inspection Standards
• Drug and Alcohol Testing

The familiar yellow school bus has become a symbol of education in American society. Nationally, 418,000 yellow buses travel more than 4.5 billion miles a year, carrying 24 million children - nearly half of the nation's children safely to and from school. In Minnesota, nearly 11,000 school buses make 234,372,000 trips annually. Out of those 11,000 school buses, more than 5000 buses are owned by private contractors. These buses serve approximately 372 school districts and daily transport 572,250 students safely to and from school. These are impressive numbers, yet few people realize the constant behind-the-scenes effort to make the ride a safe, positive experience for every one of those children.

The superb safety record that school buses hold is the result of constant cooperative efforts. Parents, teachers, drivers, school administrators, transportation managers, school bus operators, bus manufacturers, and state and federal officials all have an important role to play in ensuring a safe ride for Minnesota's Children.