Ms. Norton todays hearing on School Bus Safety is a timely hearing with children out of to see what needs to be done to keep them safe. I am interested in keeping them safe not only on school buses and as they get on and off school buses, but i am interested in keeping them safe in the streets as they go to school. It is true that school buses have a relatively set safety record. It is also true that children or everyed every day crashes. Us related more than i believe in most accidents, we owe it to our children, the students, to examine why these fatalities done tond what can be prevent them. There are some School Districts, school buses in my own district, modes oftake other transportation including biking, car, goingding in a on public transportation. Children are often at greater risk outside a school bus than inside it. We have figures showing 260 four students have died in School Transportationrelated accidents in the last 10 years. 97 were struck by a vehicle. Hile walking near the bus we are going to hear today about what congress can do to stop violations by drivers who onegally passed school buses or loading passengers and reducing fatalities and injuries as a result of these crashes. I ams i indicated, interested in what we can do whether they are on or off of buses. The burden of providing School Transportation falls on state and local districts. Othersates are ahead of in improving School Bus Safety. We know the state of new jersey, which i am pleased is represented today and i look forward to hearing what congress can do to help ensure that we have vehicles. I want to thank each of the witnesses for appearing today. Will listen very attentively to what the congress can do in recognizing that much of the responsibility falls on the state. I am pleased to recognize mr. Davis. Ranking member. Much,vis thank you very madam chair. I want to welcome everyone to todays hearing. This is part of our ongoing work to reauthorize federal transportation and work policies. Nearlyses transporting 25 Million Schoolage children to and from school each day, School Bus Safety is an important part of this conversation. Statistics show that the school bus is the safest and most regulated vehicle on the road. In fact, children are 70 times more likely to get to School Safely when taking a bus when compared to walking, biking, or even traveling by car. Tsas recentid, n calculations say that school bus ofidents account for 0. 4 schoolage children fatalities. 416 die on the bus. 1015 die as a result of cars illegally passing school buses. Each fatality is more than a statistic. Just this last december in my district, we saw a tragic accident where a truck collided with a school bus transporting a local Basketball Team home from the game. Two students lost their lives in that accident. Nine others were injured, including eight students. As we work to reauthorize transportation programs and policies, it is my hope that we can address School Bus Safety in a bipartisan manner that prevents such instances from occurring in the future. Ntsa sets the federal Motor VehicleSafety Standards for School Bus Safety features, provides inservice training for bus drivers, and develops Public Awareness programs related to School Bus Safety. Sa establishes rules for commercial bus driver licensing. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about ways we can make schoolage children safer as they wait for, load and unload and ride a school bus. I went to thank our witnesses for being with us this morning and i look forward to their testimony. I yield back to the chair. I am pleased to recognize the Ranking Member and ask if he has an opening statement. I think i became chair, but thank you. This is our second safety hearing of the year leading up to reauthorization. , we heardhearing testimony about highway for fatalities. 100 people die every day in Motor Vehicle accidents, thats one every 15 minutes. We need to look at ways to reduce those fatalities. Obviously, we are doing a lot with transportation for kids on school buses, but its not perfect. Will hear some conflicting testimony today, and i would members of the panel might depart from prepared remarks and respond to someone who goes early, for instance. Sh is going to come out quite strongly against any federal mandate on school buses for seatbelts but the ntsb is going to talk about what they a need for lap and shoulder. We will hear about how new jersey is doing, what others say is not possible. That will be an interesting contrast. I think there is much more findingial agreement on ways to better identify the bad withs out there, those poor driving records, those with Significant Health issues and other things. States have moved forward with more prompt notification. New jersey, i think it is on a daily basis, any violation by School Bus Drivers. Looking at the National Registry and other things that the federal government does control benefits ine some those areas. This will help instruct us on whether we need to include any provisions in the Transportation Service reauthorization, which i hope to have done by early next year. With that, yield back the balance of my time. Thank you. Deals the majority leader with infrastructure. Hearing will provide us with information that could be included in the bill. I did not use all of my time and i am pleased to provide my remaining time to mr. Cohen, who had an experience that i think is the best way to lead off this hearing. I yield to my good friend from tennessee, two and a half minutes. Mr. Cohen thank you, madam chair. In 2016, there were unfortunately two School Bus Crashes that were notable in the country. One was in baltimore. One was in chattanooga. A total of 12 children were killed. In chattanooga, six children were killed and 20 injured. After those crashes, the ntsb issued a series of safety recommendations to the national Highway Safety administration. That was great. One of the recommendations included enacting laws to have buses haveool threepoint seatbelts. Others included inclusion of Collision Avoidance systems and automatic emergency braking technology. Sadly and unfortunately, nationalbly, the Highway Transportation Safety Administration has not initiated the process to apply any of these measures. Why, i have no idea. They should have acted before this. Today i introduce the School Bus Safety act with Tammy Duckworth that ensures to make School Buses Safer by having bytbelts on every seat, requiring school buses to be equipped with Fire Protection systems to address engine fires, and to create a Grant Program to help School Districts modify buses to meet these safety accommodations. There is no more precious cargo than our children. I have been trying to do this since i was a state senator. I know it is difficult, but its something we need to do. Safety belts will save lives. I yield back. I think the gentleman from tennessee. I ask unanimous consent to declare recesses throughout todays hearing. Without objection, so ordered. I also ask unanimous consent to sit with the subcommittee in todays hearing and ask questions. I am going to introduce a panel , but first i want mr. Davis to introduce mr. John benish. Pleased toi am introduce mr. John benish junior, president of the national School Transportation association under resident of the great state of illinois. Thank you for testifying today and then queue for all of the commendable work you and other Bus Operators do in keeping our kids safe. Number of kidsg that travel safely back and forth to School Every Day on your school buses ought to also be commended. We ought to address issues in Transportation Safety regarding school buses and other modes of transportation, but lets not ever forget the fact that an overwhelming amount of students, the overwhelming majority arrive safely, go home safely, and do it again the next day until they graduate High School Like my kids did this year. No more school buses for me for a while, but thank you for your service, and thank you for being here today. And q, mr. Davis. Thank you, mr. Davis. I am going to run down the witnesses and welcome the first witness. Happy to welcome the honorable mr. Mclean, the honorable brenda fulton, chair and chief administrator new commissionr vehicles. Paulin, Deputy Director of the office of Highway Safety, national Transportation Safety board. Annd farrell farrell, and finally, mr. , president ofn the teamsters local 384 in pennsylvania. , butve my coughing cold welcome, all of you, we are going to proceed left to right. Fiveyour testimony within minutes, your opening statement, rather, within five minutes. To speak as mr. Mclean, speaking for the National Conference of state legislators. You may proceed. Turn on your microphone. Thank you very much. Distinguished members of the house subcommittee, my name is cochair ofan, i am the National Conference of state nationalres resources and infrastructure committee. I am here representing the 50 state legislatures and legislatures of our nations andonwealth, territories, the district of columbia. Every day School Children climb into 485,000 buses across the country that take them to and from school activities. Thankfully, school buses are statistically the safest way to transport children. However, 61 children died in accidents between 20082017, and this is 61 to many. Determined fall into three distinct categories. Laws requiring seatbelts. Laws requiring cameras to site drivers who illegally pass a school bus, and laws affecting drivers. 33 states have considered more than 200 bills in 2019 thus far. Compare this to only one hundred 32 bills in 2014 and 173 bills in 2015. You can see there has been an up tick in legislative interest in School Bus Safety. Energybuses use high absorbing seatbacks and closely spaced seats so that children are cap snug. These features do not necessarily protect children the way seatbelts do during side impact crashes or rollovers, when passengers could be thrown from their seats. In may, 2017, a School Bus Accident took the life of one student and one teacher in new jersey. As a result, new jersey required seatbelts. Seven other states required seatbelts on school buses. In 20 18, more than 108,000 School Bus Drivers observed 84,000 vehicles illegally passing school buses in a single day. Tonkfully, cars are required stop and remain stopped when a school bus arm and flashing red lights are deployed. In 2018, wyoming became the first state to require school buses to be equipped with cameras to catch motorists illegally passing school buses. States have also added language to address privacy concerns. In alabama, the video cannot include the face of the driver or passenger and must be destroyed within 90 days if there is no violation. States have also moved to increase penalties for illegally passing a stopped school bus. Illinois now requires revocation of a drivers license and someone illegally passes a school bus and the violation leads to a Motor Vehicle crash resulting in death. I would like to state how states has strengthened requirements for drivers. All must take preemployment drug and Alcohol Testing as well as random testing during employment. Dates of increased Driver Training requirements. Rhode island enacted a law requiring annual training for School Bus Drivers that includes an inservice training series. Servingmy fourth term as state legislator in the house of representatives and the third time chairing this committee and this past session was the most active in terms of legislation addressing School Bus Safety. Just over a month ago in midjune, maine past two bills focused on bus safety. One will now require school buses purchased after this year to be equipped with a School Bus Crossing Arm and another addressed the issue of cars passing school buses. Initially, there was interest in simply increasing fines for violators, but we know that increasing penalties does not solve the problem. Stakeholders including Community Members and local and state police and this group identified that the enforcement of existing laws is the challenge because there is no way to identify the vehicle when the bus driver is the only person to witness the violation. Groupthe working authorized the use of a camera and Traffic Control device to identify the violator. This was very controversial given our states high regard for privacy, but the testimony from grieving parents and Community Members was powerful and convincing. Too many kids are being hurt or killed while near a school bus. I thank you for the opportunity to testify on this important topic and i look forward to your questions. Ms. Norton thank you very much. Next, the chair and chief administrator of the new jersey motor via local Motor Vehicle commission. Thank you and good afternoon. I am here representing the new jersey Motor Vehicle commission and governor murphy, and we are grateful for the opportunity to speak on such an important topic. Heard, a, as you School Bus Crash and mount olive, new jersey, tragically took the life of a fifthgrader and a social studies teacher. Injured dozens of children. This crash broke our hearts and caused us to take a close look at how we keep our kids safe. New jersey is second to none in ensuring that our school buses are safe. Each one is inspected at least twice a year with a review of driver qualifications as well as school safety. Our task force conducts an additional 100 unannounced inspections. Unannounced inspections have been particularly critical to identifying private operators who have unqualified operators driving their school buses. We started requiring lap belts on all school buses in 1992 and we remain one of only seven states that requires them. We started to require every bus be equipped with a crossing arm that prevents children from passing directly in front of the bus. This was modeled on a law from washington state. With the passing of abigails law, all new Jersey School buses were required to have sensors in front and back to detect if an object or small child was below the field of view. Night, we generate a report the Motor Vehicle department generates a report of any driver whose license has been suspended. After the devastating loss of ennifer williamson new Jersey Department of education for action. Ut after the devastating loss of Jennifer Williamson and 10yearold miranda, we resolved to do even more. Signed eight y laws in improving the safety of school buses, drivers, and supervisors. If they receive three or more moving violations in a three more eriod or six or points. And they must complete a defensive driving course before restored. Three local boards of education or the bus contractor that rovides the people Transportation Services are notified by the department of ed f suspensions within one working day and must confirm with h within one business day suspended driver is no longer operating a school bus. Four, in addition to the commercial drivers license for medical certification, from a federal examiner every two years, School Bus Drivers age 70 evidence of avide medical exam every year and over must 75 and provide evidence of an exam every six months. Bus e local level School Drivers and school bus aids must biannuallye training and School District transportation survivors must complete an approved an ification program at institute of higher education. Respects were fortunate that our governor, education commissioner, state legislators, congress have all together my message would be dont wait for another child to die before you take action. Questions. Our thank you for the opportunity to testify. Appreciate that testimony. Theood afternoon members of subcommittee. Ntsb you for inviting the to testify today. Travel is is one of the safest orms of transportation on our roads today. Children are safer travelling in school buses than in any other vehicle. But still, improvements can be made. Oday, i