By Peter Mannella New Administration; Many Changes Afoot As the new administration takes shape and begins to implement its priorities, things are moving at a rapid and fluid pace. We will be monitoring developments among the key federal agencies that affect school bus transportation, as well as congressional action affecting our work as well. […]
The on-going school bus driver shortage is a serious problem indeed. It is widespread and it is persistent, and it affects the lives of the children we transport. And there is no easy answer in sight. It threatens our ability to carry out our prime mission: to safely transport our nation’s children to and from […]
Over the years, the National Transportation Safety Board has been on the ground examining the impact of crashes that involved school buses, in particular, those which resulted in one or more fatalities. That work is consistent with the charter and purpose the Congress enumerated for the Board upon its establishment in law in 1967. We’ve […]
One definition of ‘optimism’ I read refers to one’s confidence that the results of any situation will be mostly positive, good, or favorable. In the school bus business, we approach every day with a sense of optimism. For every day we are responsible for transporting 25 million children to school on our nearly half a […]
In every family or personal relationship, we place both spoken and unspoken expectations on one another. There are also expectations in play in every professional contract and interaction. We perform a service or provide goods to others, and we expect payment or consideration. Expectations affect every aspect of our lives. It’s appropriate to have expectations […]
Throughout our history, when we’ve seen a freight or an Amtrak passenger train making its way along the rails in our communities, we don’t stop and wonder if it’s going to crash or derail. We trust it’s operating safely, and we can ride on it or be near it without worry. Similarly, when we board […]
Perhaps no one sees their community as much or as well as school bus drivers. In their route, school bus drivers go into all neighborhoods and down many side streets that mass transit buses and other vehicles don’t use and the police may circle only now and again. It’s always intrigued me what school bus […]
An American President once called for our nation to look for ‘a thousand points of light’ around our communities and neighborhoods. His call was for us to find ways to unite and to see the good in one another while also encouraging us all to find ways to help one another. In that same spirit, […]
When I was young and serving our church as a reader at Sunday Mass, I once added to the communal prayer (that the pastor had personally prepared) a plea for those who died alone. The first time I inserted it (at the holiday season), he asked, or maybe he barked: “Hey Mannella, what the heck […]
As I sat and pondered what strand of thought to follow in what is often called a ‘thought piece,’ it struck me that my intent in each of these monthly writings was to get us all to just consider topics and share discussion. It seems like there is not enough time in our days lately […]