FATAL STOP!

helping the best he can. But burdened with a mind sickening knowledge that very proudly the responsibility for this scene was his. over here. Man, the way Hi, Charlie. I said one to six. Yeah. Fair Oaks football field before. Don't worry about it. Bus 32 is just like yours. The coach will show you the way. Now, can you get a hustle on for me? Okay. Portrait of a school bus. An immensely complicated piece of equipment in which thousands of the buses to provide returning lights directs case in point Charlie Schilling's left front tire which has developed a serious problem and when Charlie spots it on his pre-trip inspection he'll want it replaced immediately beginning before the engine is even started with an under the hood examination of water and oil levels and the condition of hoses and belts. Pre-trip inspection is required by regulation and common sense by every school bus operation in the land. It is unquestionably one of the most critical tasks that school bus drivers perform. [Music] Frequently printed on a thorough check sheet which lists all items in sequence. Pre-trip inspections may contain as many as 80 separate items, each of which must be checked before every trip on which students will be carried. Brakes, horn, defroster, and the list continues, itemizing every bus component, the proper condition and functioning of which is essential to bus safety. Emergency door. But no list, however comprehensive and welldevised, is any better than the driver who uses it. And if just one item is overlooked, the consequences can be catastrophic. Hey, Charlie, get a move on. The principal's on the phone. The coach is getting sore. YOU CAN TELL THE COACH HE All right. All right. I'm coming. [Music] What's a coach and teachers know about driving a bus anyhow? It takes time to do this stuff right. And so Charlie Schilling continues his already flawed pre-trip inspection and bus 32 leaves the transportation yard for the last time. Oh. Um, incidentally, observing as you have what's happened so far, what comments do you have about this football trip to Fair Oaks? Johnny, where the heck have you been? I got a late notice, coach. That's all. Behind schedule. Let's go load up. Hi, Mr. Silly. Oh, hi Connie. How are you? Portrait of the passengers. Excited, impatient, anxious, worried about the game ahead. Altogether, a fairly typical football team on the way to an important game. Big game, huh? here. All right. Okay, coach. Yeah, we're ready. Let's go. Okay. Passengers in their seats, bus on the road. But today, it's thousands of parts aren't working together correctly to provide safe transportation. And later, when the question is asked, who could have prevented the tragedy? The answer on many lips will be Charlie Schilling. idea, which introduces the allimportant subject of driver responsibility, including the professional responsibility for a scrupulous pre-trip inspection performed just as thoroughly the thousandth time as the first in order to find the one or more parts which might not be functioning properly. But not all drivers are responsible. Nothing's ever wrong with my bus. It was okay yesterday. It just came out of the shop. I'm late. I just don't have time. Marian checked it this morning. Excuses. Yes. In fact, words to crash by. Even a factory fresh bus should be pre-tripped before it carries passengers because even new parts can malfunction and only one malfunction can cause a tragedy. To many drivers, emergency door warn and buzzer on my bus was broken. But uh I didn't think it was important cuz I thought I could keep my eyes on the door. But I was concentrating on the road and two boys started rubbing. I knew the windshield wipers didn't work on my bus, but I figured it hadn't rained in a long, long time. So, I took the bus out and it rained. What a cloud burst. And no way can you drive in the rain without windshield wipers. Kind of embarrassing what happened to me. I didn't check the gas gauge. Had a loose seat. Nothing that seemed urgent to fix or anything. But I had to make a panic stop one day and a little girl broke her nose. A broken right turn signal cost us a few thousand in a lawsuit. Driver of the other car couldn't tell I was going to turn right. And before the whole thing was over, the other driver spent some time in the hospital and I almost lost my job. Well, I've always had the idea that using a seat belt isn't that important. But, uh, on this one trip, I I had to swerve, hit a soft shoulder, and I got thrown into the stepwell. [Music] There was this one morning when I forgot to check the lug nuts on the front wheel. Before I got out of my parking place, a wheel fell off. Some kids had figured that loosening the nuts would be a good Halloween trick. Funny, huh? That'll never happen again. which introduces the subject of vandalism. [Music] A costly and dangerous practice which increasingly plagues a lot of bus operations. Broken dangerous fun with a fire extinguisher. Yes, you know they happen. But also sugar in the gas tank and nails in the tires. How would you like to miss that little booby trap on a pre-trip inspection? If you'd like a personal anecdote, listen to the driver who had his brake lines cut by vandals. Well, uh, I was in a hurry to leave the yard and I didn't check anything very well. And when I tried to stop at the stop sign, boy, I sailed right out into the street and up the driveway across from me. So, he returned for another bus, which had the same problem. And as he sailed for the second time, he became convinced that a complete pre-trip inspection should include a thorough break test to adjust her crossover mirror so she couldn't possibly see the little girl getting her lunchbox in front of the bus. You see, the school bus driving profession allows no mistakes. None. [Music] And the first place to prevent on the road problems is that allimportant pre-trip inspection as Charlie Schilling has been trained to do. Well, you've heard our drivers talk about some consequences of sloppy pre-trip inspections, but what are some other potential consequences? and what constitutes a good pre-trip inspection. [Music] Buset Far excitement in the air. This is the day. The day they worked so hard for and plan to remember always for fun and football. letter. It's a day they will remember for a school bus and its driver, their friend Charlie Shelling. You going to be written for us tonight, Mr. Sh? You bet, Connie. I'll be over just as soon as I secure this bus. Okay, see you later. You bet. [Music] And so, miles from home, Charlie finishes securing his bus. secure in the knowledge that everything is a-ok okay but everything isn't a-ok okay and this is the day that Charlie Schilling will scratch the paint one of the best ways known to bus drivers not to scratch the paint is that all important pre-trip inspection mirrors clean and properly adjusted emergency exits check for proper operation in opening and closing. Check vacuum tanks. Check turn signals right and left, front and rear. Check tires for condition and pressure. And the list continues. Because the pre-trip ritual can never be left to chance, whether the inspection takes place in the busyard or at home. [Music] But isn't the responsibility for putting safe buses on the road a team operation involving manufacturers, mechanics, and transportation supervisors as well as drivers? Yes, it is. All right. Yes. We as manufacturers, as the other manufacturers, try to build the safest bus we can for our children. My job is to put the safest buses on the road possible. How can I do that if the drivers don't ride them up and tell me what's wrong with them? Andy, we seem to have a problem. We've got uh some kind of a strange noise up front. You can't tell for sure. Well, there's a lot of times and most of times that I'd rather get out myself and drive that bus and see or feel it myself because until you really know or feel, it's hard to pick up a problem that a driver has with it. All righty. There. There we're picking it up a little bit. Can you hear it? Yeah. Yeah. I think I got a dick. As supervisor dealing with professionals, I feel like this pre-trip inspection is the driver's most important function of the day. But while the team is behind the wrench or the phone or the desk, it's the driver who ends up behind the wheel. And if there's trouble or tragedy, it's the driver who's always there when it happens. Uh before I ever leave the bus yard, if there's anything wrong with the bus, the mechanics know about it immediately. We check out our bus each time before we leave the yard. We're encouraged to write down specific problems that may be wrong with our bus. Not only is it important to check out the bus and to know that it's in good shape to make the trip, it's also important for the bus driver to pre-est himself to know if he's ready to make the trip. Because out on the road, anything can happen. A pre-trip inspection for drivers, too. A kind of self inspection to answer the question, am I ready to get behind the wheel? Yes. Because the driver is an even more complicated piece of equipment than the bus. And good as the bus may be, it's no better than its driver is today. Sick today? Taking medication today? especially angry or upset today, preoccupied with serious personal problems. Although I'm not ill very often, I feel it is quite important to let my supervisor know when I'm not feeling well. And being a professional, I would never take advantage of the situation. Being ready to drive has to do with taking medication, too. I think most people realize there are certain medications that can make driving unsafe. And if my doctor ever prescribes medication that could make me unsafe behind the wheel of my bus, no way am I going to take that chance. Well, if a driver comes in angry or upset emotionally, uh, it's kind of a human tendency to hide this or try to, but we found that if we talk it over with our supervisor, it's much better. And we do not send a driver out or we don't go out as a driver if we have an emotional upset or we're angry about something. Bus drivers, like everyone else, have family problems. But if they bring them to work with them, their mind can't be on their job. Their mind's at home. As a supervisor, my greatest prime concern is the safety both for the equipment and the drivers. Now, I personally want to be out here to look at the drivers, make sure they've got the right attitude and that things are going to go well during the day. I've always told my drivers that if they don't really feel honestly ready to drive, they should tell me. Now, they're professionals, so they'd never take advantage of that. But well, there's just no way that I'd send a driver out if that driver didn't feel that he or she was really ready. Which brings us back to Charlie Schilling and the Fair Oaks football trip. Hey, Danny. Boy, you did it. Great. Great. Oh, girls, you were beautiful. Mr. We did. Inside the bus, the characteristic confusion of A WINNING TEAM. ON THE LEFT front wheel. An uncharacteristic condition approaching the kind of consequence that will affect the lives of everyone on board. [Applause] OKAY. OKAY. OKAY. SETTLE DOWN. SETTLE DOWN. SETTLE DOWN. YEAH. YEAH. You won. That was great. But if I'm going to get you home safely, you're going to have to keep down the noise just a little bit. OKAY. WE'RE NUMBER ONE. OKAY, WE'RE NUMBER ONE. WE'RE NUMBER ONE. Passengers in their seats, bus on the road. But tonight, the mood is different because the number one team is enjoying the ride of football teams everywhere to be excited about its most important victory. Almost home. And with only a few miles left to go, it finally happens. [Music] [Applause] My god, Charlie. What happened? We blew a tire. It's hung up. I can't get it out. What's the matter with it? I don't know. It's stuck or something. So often it's a combination of things that makes the difference. Like right now with bus 32 stopped on a curve at night, Charlie Schilling faces the final consequence of a sloppy pre-trip inspection when he opens the cover of his reflector box. I don't have any reflectors. You're kidding. Where are they? They're not here. [Music] Well, as they say, that's it. A setup for catastrophe which will involve everyone connected with bus 32 and the driver of that big interstate rig just now closing the gap down the highway. [Music] Not much else to say at just this moment. Charlie Schilling is the only one at the scene who could even describe what happened. But later, an awful lot of questions will be asked about that Fair Oaks football trip and the reasons it never returned home. When the National Transportation Safety Board investigates the crash, they'll fill out a lot of forms having to do with the driver, the vehicle, and the environment. If you had to fill out those forms, what things would you say caused that crash? [Applause] [Music] 65 69 grand. report [Music] 594 [Applause] [Music] 1025 [Music] down 15 number Heat. Heat. [Music] 039 [Music] complete. [Music]