School bus

“ To remind all Americans of the importance of School bus safety, the Congress, by House Joint Resolution 141, has requested the President to proclaim the week beginning October 4, 1981, as "National School bus Safety Week."
Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the period from October 4, 1981 through October 10, 1981, as National School bus Safety Week. I call upon all Americans to recognize and contribute to the imperative of providing safe transportation for our schoolchildren. ”

“ Considerable progress was made in such schools with horse-drawn vehicles, but not until the advent of the motor bus was attained anything like a practical solution of the problem. So rapidly has the consolidated school made its way that now there are more than 12,000 such schools served by motor buses. Since a six-room consolidated school will replace about nine small schools the greater efficiency of a graded school extending through a longer school period is gained at little if any increased cost. ”

“ Last year, the FBI warned that members of extremist groups have purchased school buses and obtained licenses to operate them.
An attack on a school bus would be devastating, not only in lives harmed, but also the psychological and symbolic impact. We owe our children and their families no less than that we will be able to confidently say that their transportation is secure. ”

“ The car drivers should have just parked their cars and sat there quietly waiting for me to come out of cover.
School children make nice targets, I think I shall wipe out a school bus some morning. Just shoot out the front tire & then pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out. ”

“ Our country's greatest resource is its children; their education is our investment in the future.
Currently, more than 20 million students are transported by School bus to and from school each day. The safety of these students deserves the highest priority. ”

“ It is a liberal education to take a journey, for instance, on the top of a Fifth Avenue motor bus and watch the way in which the driver drives his unwieldly vehicle through the streets of New York. Other bus drivers also are rapidly becoming his equal, and let it be acknowledged that nothing but the hard school of practical, every-day experience in New York City streets, assisted by police supervision and the fear of dismissal for carelessness or accident, could produce such able drivers. ”

“ More than twenty-two million youngsters use school buses to get to school.
When we consider the millions of young people who are transported and the millions of trips school buses make each year, we can take great pride in our safety record. Nevertheless, we must reaffirm our commitment to providing the safest possible transportation for our children. They are our most important resource, and their safe transport is and deserves to be one of our highest priorities. ”

“ If he or she is a real teacher and has good assistants, the children will be well taught, regardless of the physical plant. So, in choosing a private school, make sure the education it affords is worth the tuition father pays.
Putting the children in a private school necessitates one thing more. That is transportation. Sometimes a private bus takes care of this matter. If not, mother must be tied to a daily schedule of driving the youngsters to and from school. This usually entails a second car. Here, as with other matters, the initial cost is by no means all; there is the up-keep. ”

“ First of all, the metropolitan plan would not involve the busing of substantially more students than already ride buses. The District Court found that, state-wide, 35-40% of all students already arrive at school on a bus. In those school districts in the tri-county Detroit metropolitan area eligible for state reimbursement of transportation costs, 42%-52% of all students rode buses to school. ”

“ Elizabeth Ann hadn’t heard about the bus, and neither had Doris.
“You’re going to a consolidated school,” explained Aunt Grace. “When I was a little girl they didn’t have them—we went to a little school house near this farm. There was only one room, and my older sister taught all the grades. But now they have combined a number of these small schools into one large one. A bus goes through the country gathering up the scholars, and in that way one school building can be made to do the work of six or seven one-room buildings.” ”

“ Rural areas accustomed for half a century to the consolidated school systems implemented by bus transportation could make adjustments more readily than metropolitan areas with dense and shifting population, numerous schools, congested and complex traffic patterns. ”

“ We have three purely country consolidated schools, each serving a township, and from our experience here we have come to the conclusion that districts of this kind are not a success with bus transportation unless they have an assessed valuation of $175,000 or more. Part of the burden of transportation must be borne by parents of the children attending school. With the family transportation system these schools are working out very well, being able to employ three teachers and run nine months of school per year without exceeding the maximum tax levy. ”

“ The opening, next week, of a Training School for Bus and Tube Travellers will, it is hoped, supply a long-felt want in the Metropolis. I understand that a month's course at the establishment will enable the feeblest of mortals to hold his own and more in the fearful mêlée that rages daily round train and vehicle. ”

“ There is even a possibility that some of the children might not be sent to the church schools if the parents were compelled to pay their children's bus fares out of their own pockets when transportation to a public school would have been paid for by the State. ”

“ As has been indicated, every day over 36 million people travel on forms of mass transit or public transportation in this country. More than 11 million commuters use rail and mass transit, while over twice this number, more than 25 million, use public or private school buses to travel to and from their schools. ”

“ Buses pass like big squares of honeycomb on wheels, crowded with pale, tired bees—the stars march slowly from the western slope to their light viewless pinnacle in the center of the heavens, walking brightly like strong men in silvered armor—the stars and the buses, the buses and the stars, either and both of as little and much account—it would not really surprise either Oliver or Nancy if the next green bus that passes should start climbing into the sky like a clumsy bird. ”

“ The ’buses do not confine themselves to the middle of the roadway and allow passengers to pick and fight their way through a crowd of vehicles, New York-like; they pull up to the curb to allow passengers to enter or leave without the least possibility of danger or trouble. Conductors will also leave their perch, approach the sidewalk (Anglice, pavement) to consult or advise with a prospective passenger who is in doubt as to which ’bus he should take. Time seems of no importance: they are not in such a rush or whirl of excitement as we are. ”

“ Cross-country motor service has proven quite feasible and scores of buses now leave every large city for the surrounding smaller towns. The bus seems to negotiate a 50-mile trip very easily at a speed of approximately 20 miles per hour including stops. These buses or stages carry from 12 to 20 passengers and are operated by one man; they are well sprung and equipped with pneumatic tires. For country traffic seats cross ways of the car are much more comfortable to the rider than lengthwise seats. ”

“ James has never ridden on a London bus, yet I believe in the truth of his unspoken thought, that a Fifth Avenue bus is the most excellent vehicle in the world. The London bus depends for its charm on a number of non-essential qualities; on the humor of its driver (are the chauffeurs of London's electric buses also masters of epigram?) , on the quaintness and antiquity of the thoroughfare, on the military efficiency of the traffic policemen, on the philmayishness of the passengers. The Fifth Avenue bus has one reason for existence: it shows its passengers Fifth Avenue. No bus can do more. ”

“ No less than thirty road services are in operation, and their number is being steadily augmented. In fact, it looks as if in the near future the motor service will largely supplant the branch railway, blessed with very few trains a day. A motor bus service plying every half-hour between a town and the nearest important main-line station would be more valuable to the inhabitants than half a dozen [145] trains a day, especially if the passenger vehicles were supplemented by lorries for the carriage of luggage and heavy goods. ”

“ Some of these cars are almost luxuriously fitted with fine cushions and special lighting. They have speaking tubes or electrical devices to signal the driver. The drivers for the large companies wear the livery of the company. Taxis, as may be inferred, have no established routes, but go wherever the passenger may desire.
The motor-bus is well established both in city and cross-country traffic. As at first made motor-buses consisted of special bodies with seats placed upon freight truck chassis. ”

“ Motor Bus Traffic. —Suburban and interurban motor bus passenger service is growing rapidly. Buses accommodating as high as sixty persons are being used on the haul where the roads are well paved, but twenty to thirty seems more popular. At present these buses seem to be well patronized, usually bringing their passengers to the larger city in time for business or shopping and returning them home in the afternoon or evening. The rates of fare for bus travel are about the same as those for steam car travel, or approximately 4 c. per mile. ”

“ From the point of speed they are very superior to the horsed vehicle, and statistics show that they are also less costly to run in proportion to the fares carried, while passengers will unanimously acknowledge their greater comfort. To change from the ancient, rattling two-horse conveyance, which jolts us on rough roads, and occasionally sends a thrill up the spine when the brakes are applied, to the roomy steam- or petrol-driven bus, which overtakes and threads its way through the slower traffic, is a pleasant experience. ”

“ The increasing crowd stares with beatific placidity. People emerge impatiently from the bowels of the throbbing motor-bus and slip down from its back, and either join the crowd or vanish. The two policemen and the crew of the motor-bus have now met in parley. The conductor and the driver have an air at once nervous and resigned; their gestures are quick and vivacious. The policemen, on the other hand, indicate by their slow and huge movements that eternity is theirs. ”

“ So the motor buses are crowded, while the horsed rivals on the same route trundle along half empty. Since the one class of vehicles can travel at an average pace of ten miles an hour, as against the four miles an hour of the other, no wonder that this should be so. Even if the running costs of a motor bus for a given distance exceed that of an electric tram, we must remember that, whereas a bus runs on already existing roads, an immense amount of capital must be sunk in laying the track for the tram, and the interest on this sum has to be added to the total running costs. ”

“ There seems to be another feasible and legitimate use for the motor bus which may help the street car companies as well. That is extensions by means of buses at the ends of the car lines or into territory not well served by them. The bus might collect passengers from an outlying district and bring them to the car line where the trolley can take them on to the heart of the city. Thus motor buses will become feeders rather than competitors of the regularly established traction lines. ”

“ Buses are like candy bars, I thought. The price goes up and the size goes down. Each new bus seemed to have less leg room and a lower headrest than its predecessor, so that you had to be a contortionist to take a nap.
I had found a reasonably comfortable position when two men got on, took the seats behind me and continued a discussion they'd been having about the aliens. ”

“ In rural districts this end is obviously more easily attainable than in large industrial centres. In the latter the expense of moving classes of children from their schools to visit a site some miles distant would be no doubt considerable; but is it too visionary to hope that before long a motor-bus, capable of carrying a class of thirty or forty boys and girls, will be deemed by Educational Committees a necessary part of their 'apparatus'? ”

“ Rochester edges aside, and lets him take the driving wheel. And so now we are all in the hands of our friend the bus-mate. He drives—not very well. It is evident he is learning. The bus can't quite keep in the grooves of this wild bare road. And he shuts off when we slip down a hill—and there is a great muddle on the upslope when he tries to change gear. ”

“ It had a lady conductor, and she was poised expectantly, one hand on the bell and the other beckoning to Mr. Russell. His nature was docile, and the 'bus was bound for Chancery Lane, his destination. He mounted the 'bus.
I need hardly tell you that a 'bus that makes deliberate advances to the public is the rarest sight in London. The self-respecting 'bus looks upon the public as dust beneath its tyres. Even a Brigadier-General with red tabs, on his way to Whitehall, looks pathetically humble waggling his cane at a 'bus. All 'bus-drivers have a kingly look; it comes from their proud position. ”