Breaking records can be a good thing — but not in the case of school bus crashes.

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, 2025 recorded 237 school bus crashes, resulting in seven fatalities. It marked the state’s highest bus crash total in five years.

We’ve seen our fair share of bus accidents in Butler County in recent years. Thankfully, none have resulted in student fatalities.

As schools head back into session for the 2026-2027 school year, school bus safety is more important than ever. We all play a role in keeping students and bus drivers safe.

School districts and PennDOT are doing their part to provide additional safety training for drivers.

PennDOT announced in July a $1.1 million grant for 26 transportation providers across 19 counties to train over 430 new bus drivers. The monies also cover commercial driver’s license training, trainee wages and testing and permit fees. The funds are from PennDOT’s School Bus Safety Grant Program.

In addition to the safety grant, school transportation companies strictly adhere to PennDOT requirements for commercial licensing. Drivers must pass a Pennsylvania School Bus Physical Exam every 13 months to maintain licensure, plus mandatory vision screening.

New drivers must complete a minimum of 20 hours of instruction — 14 hours of classroom training and 6 hours behind the wheel with a certified instructor — before they can take their CDL test. While the training is adequate, we would advocate for more hours of supervised training behind the wheel for bus drivers, including in various weather and road conditions.

After all, youth under 18 must fulfill 65 hours of behind-the-wheel supervised practice before they can even take their road test. That includes 10 hours of nighttime driving and 5 hours of bad weather driving. Considering an average, full-sized school bus weighs between 23,000 and 33,000 pounds when fully loaded with students and a full tank of gas, the extra supervised road training can only be beneficial to everyone.

Bus drivers and schools aren’t the only ones responsible for student safety. The community must do its part to keep our children — and bus drivers — safe on the road. That means stopping for flashing school bus lights and crosswalks and slowing down in school zones.

Together, we can get our most precious cargo to and from school safely.

— SB