ALLEN COUNTY, OH (WLIO) - As the governor expands upon school safety and security, local bus drivers are learning how to protect themselves and the children that they transport.
It's better to have a plan and not need it than to need a plan and not have it. That from a national safety training specialist from Washington State. School bus drivers from all across Allen County are learning that to survive a crisis you must think, you must know what is going on around you, and how to respond if the need arises.
"Today's purpose was to get them to just, hey, when you're in that bus and driving and you're at a light and you're stopped anyway, look around and say what would I do if? Whether it's an external threat, whether it's a fight on the bus, whether it's a kid on the bus with a weapon, what would I do if? And then to think that plan through to succession," stated Jesus Villahermosa, president and owner of Crisis Reality Training.
He says these drivers are transporting our nation's most precious cargo as these children are our future and they need to know how to protect them. He also acknowledges that bus drivers are the safest mode of transportation in the United States.
"There's no other transportation that is safer than a school bus driver in America. And they do it with 30, 40, 50, 60 kids behind them. While they're driving at 35 to 55 miles an hour while they're checking their side mirrors, while they're checking their rearview mirror, while they're looking for the driver who's going to blow the yellow light to try and cross through before it's red, right? These drivers, they don't get enough credit for what they do," added Villahermosa.
He goes on to say kids are 75 times safer driving with their bus driver than with their own parents. The Allen County Educational Service Center hosted Tuesday's in-service.
