Woodmore Elementary Principal Brenda Adamson-Cothran speaks last Monday about the school day following the bus tragedy. “It was a good day for our kids,” Adamson-Cothran said.It has been almost two weeks since a tragic school bus crash here claimed six young lives and sparked a wildfire of despair.
Maybe, given time, the community’s grief will evolve into resolve, and we will be energized to improve school bus safety.
News coverage has focused on the Durham School Services bus driver, whom authorities suspect of speeding before the accident on Talley Road, and on possible measures by state lawmakers to require safety belts on school buses, a push which has been tried before without success in Tennessee.
As a parent of two boys who are occasional bus riders in the Hamilton County school district, the tragedy has made one thing clear to me: When it comes to safety, today’s school buses are 20th century relics in a 21st century world.
Parents who insist on having family vehicles with the government’s top safety ratings routinely put their children on school buses that rely mainly on primitive safety features. What modern mother, for example, would regularly transport her children in a car with no seat belts and no air bags?