Kids screaming, cars honking, a police siren heard in the distance, another school bus has just crashed. Sounds all too familiar? Well, here’s a fact. 135 families lose their child to a school bus accident each year. School kids are at risk. And so are yours.

The safety of the lives of 25 million students are in danger. And that’s just in The United States. The United States Department of Transportation needs to help. They need to add restrictions and more guidelines to the qualifications needed to be a school bus driver.

At the moment, if you have a clean drug record and a commercial license you can become a school bus driver for any school district in America. I think that’s ridiculous because that puts people’s lives in danger. It puts kids lives in danger. We need to be more cautious when hiring a school bus driver. We are not just risking $31,813 ,which is the median salary for a public school bus driver, we are risking the lives of America’s future!

Seat belts, do we really need them? I think so. Surprisingly wonderopolis.org doesn’t think so. They think” ‘it’s too much money so we don’t need them”. California, Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, and Texas. These are six States in the US that require seat belts on school buses. I do not think school buses in these six states have seat belts. I say this from first hand experience. I am a student in Texas who rides the school bus. My school bus does not have seat belts.

So are school districts across The United States breaking the law? What should we do to ensure that they follow the law? What should we be doing to save precious lives? Well, here’s what I recommend that The Department of Transportation make mandatory for all schools:

1. Schools will have to provide seat belts and airbags on every school bus (in all 50 states)
2. Schools are responsible to run background checks on possible candidates for US school bus drivers and ascertain that they have good driving records
3. Ensure there are only a certain amount of students per school bus to assure that the ride will be safe

In conclusion, if we follow those 3 steps we can keep America’s future safe. In order to make a difference, and help this cause, contact your state department of transportation and raise awareness.