Fatal Accident in Bus Barn Caused by Non-School Vehicle

By Lisa J. Hudson

Just as important but sometimes overlooked, the safety of school transportation employees is the subject of today's blog. The Houston Chronicle reports that yesterday's fatal accident at Lamar Consolidated Independent School District's bus barn occurred when a Federal Express delivery truck struck a school transportation employee. According to an account provided by the Rosenberg Police Department, the driver of the FedEx truck tried to leave the bus barn after making a delivery there and did not see the victim, Robert Judd Whitman, 61, of Fulshear. Police said Whitman was in the FedEx driver's “blind spot” as the driver traveled forward.

The incident raises safety concerns about the presence of non-school vehicles in school bus facilities. We want to hear from you: are non-school vehicles allowed to move about in your facilities? Are any special safety precautions taken when these vehicles arrive and depart?

Freightliner to Embark on Road Toward All-Electric Vehicles

While school buses are seemingly not part of the discussion — yet, anyay — Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation, a subsidiary of Daimler and the provider of chassis for Thomas Built Buses, has inked a letter of intent with Enova Systems to meet the demand for all-electric commercial vehicles.

Using Enova’s 120kw and 90kw all-electric drive system (as opposed to the 25/80kw drive utilizes by IC Bus in its CE plug-in and regular hybrid school buses), Freightliner appears to be going after the UPS and FedEx parcel truck market, at least initially, as a press release on Enova’s Web site mentioned vehicles “including” the MT-45 walk-in chassis will be targeted. Those chassis have gross vehicle weight rating between 14,140 and 19,000 pounds and maximum payloads of 10,000 pounds

Thomas Built buses are generally built on the FB-45 commercial bus chassis for the Saf-T-Liner C2 and the MB-55 “Heavy Duty” Bus Chassis for the Saf-T-Liner EF and HDE Type D models. But the important piece of this news is simply that Freightliner is jumping both feet into the all-electric market. And it’s interesting that the press release is worded in a way that indicates other chassis might receive, either now or in the future, and electric drive. Does that include Thomas school buses?

Cost, of course, is a consideration as international corporations like UPS and FedEx can shoulder them, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth, for electric trucks much easier than schools can. Nevermind that all-electric buses, some say, are currently a bit cheaper than their hybrid cousins. But there are also the issues of electric offering the driving range needed by many school buses, especially those operating in rural areas and the reliability of batteries currently on the market. But the deal signals that federal investment in electric vehicles for R&D might be showing dividends. And in Thomas' case, it should be noted that VP of Engineering Herbert Mehnert used to run the hybrid program at Freightliner Custom Chassis.

Time will tell.