School BUSRide spoke with Katie Mueller, Senior Program Manager II, Mobility Safety, for the National Safety Council (NSC). She has worked for 15 years in health communications, injury prevention programs and policy. In her role at NSC, she is a member of the roadway practice area and manages programs to better understand and address roadway mobility issues. Her areas of expertise are transportation, workplace injury prevention, and impairment.
The National Safety Council is a mission-based organization focused on eliminating the leading causes of preventable death and injury. Its efforts and thought leadership center on impacting safety through two strategic pillars – workplace and roadway – until the data says otherwise.
Tell us about your professional background. How did you become involved with the National Safety Council (NSC) as a senior program manager?
I have been at NSC for about three years, and prior to that I worked at the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety, where I oversaw federal grants and transportation policy for the state of Oklahoma.
Prior to that, I worked in pediatric injury prevention, so working with kiddos and those who live and drive with kiddos is very close to my heart – so all of that has kind of culminated over the last 25 years.
What are your roles and responsibilities with the NSC?
Here at NSC, I lead a program that’s called Our Driving Concern, and it’s a group of grant programs where we work with states on traffic safety-related issues funded by the states but passed through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. These programs focus on risky driving behaviors, things like distraction and seat belt use, impaired driving, all things that affect our ability to drive safely and really interact with other drivers on the roadway.
So we build our programs around what’s happening in the states and in Texas specifically, which is how I got connected to you all. We work with the Pupil Transportation Association in Texas to train drivers, but also to train organizations and companies to raise the awareness of the risks that happen on the roadway, both for drivers and for pedestrians of all ages, really looking at transportation from a community standpoint and what we can all do to do a better job of keeping everybody safe on the road.
Please describe the mission of the NSC. What programs does NSC offer to achieve that mission?
The National Safety Council is a more than 100-year-old national nonprofit chartered by Congress, and our mission is to save lives from the workplace to any place. We focus on preventable injuries and deaths on the roadway and in the workplace, working to create that culture of safety that is maybe learned at work but translates home. We have about 13,000 member companies across the United States representing nearly 41,000 work sites, which very much include places like school districts and municipalities that operate transportation services.
How does the school bus interface with the work you do?
One of the things I like to say to our audiences is, “The roadway is the workplace for hundreds of thousands of people across the country,” and that definitely includes your members. The roadway is their workplace. The task of driving is a complex thing that we all do every day, but it’s also the riskiest thing that we do every day. The cornerstone programs that we offer are around driver safety education and training, but it also encompasses all the things that happen: not just the drivers of the school buses or the drivers of the equipment, but also the people in the community who are interacting with those drivers every day, whether they’re other drivers, pedestrians, school children, administrators who are developing those policies in the communities in which they live and work that can advocate for safety being the top priority. And that’s what we always want.
Our job every day is safety, and it is always top of mind. I think for your audiences it is too, really encouraging everyone to advocate for safety being their first priority. Asking questions like, are we developing policies that advocate for safety first in the community and in the district? Are we advocating for behavior change policies and procedures that make it easier for our employees to make good decisions behind the wheel? If they’re tired, are they able to speak up and say, “You know what? I’m tired. That’s probably not the best thing for me to do to drive today.” Are we developing that culture in our place of work that really empowers people to speak up and do the right thing?
In what ways can the pupil transportation industry improve to reduce preventable deaths?
I know it’s no surprise to your members that transportation systems provide the most safe, reliable transportation for kiddos, and we are always going to be the first one to advocate for seat belts, both seat belt use of the driver and seat belts for the individuals riding in the school bus. Drivers must be trained to operate the school bus. You must have policies and procedures that keep everyone in and around the vehicle safe and have those policies and procedures that can be enforced and have constant communication with the people who are responsible for enforcing and doing those policies and procedures.
A lot of times whenever we provide training to our drivers, we provide it whenever they’re initially hired and then what happens? That continuous training is very important, I think, in continuously providing updated information about technology. We think technology adoption plays a huge role in the safety of the traveling public, and investment in technology is important. I think there’s lots of opportunity to save lives in the transportation space utilizing technology, and we all have to do a better job of educating ourselves and the stakeholders about those opportunities.
Does the ongoing driver shortage present a threat to school bus safety?
I think this topic is something that is top of mind for a lot of people in the transportation space, and I have no doubt your audiences are talking about it. One of the trends we are seeing is a byproduct of the shortage, but it’s organizations being prone to cut corners on safety because of that shortage. It’s a challenge; I do not envy leaders who are involved in recruiting and training drivers and retaining them. The environment is one that is competitive and a very important part of our society, but doing things like dropping pre-employment drug testing panels or other shortcut trends we’re seeing to help combat the shortage are not safe. Safety should never be secondary, and we always have to keep the standards in the industry high in order to keep everybody safe.
I don’t have a good answer for the driver shortage, and I don’t think we’re going to get there anytime soon. But training is a workforce development essential. If we train the drivers appropriately, that translates to better driver retention, less incidents, and all the things that can help reduce the shortage.
What can NAPT members do to help your mission?
I think it all starts with safety as a person, making that pledge to be safe every day, both on the job and off. Your drivers and members are leaders in this, and we certainly count on them to transport kiddos and as well as other things safely every day. But advocating for that beyond just your work, I think is key. Getting involved in your local municipality or your local county and elevating safety as a priority in those areas as well as taking what you’ve learned at work home with you makes a difference. I have a teenager at home and being able to take some of the things that I’ve learned at work home has been so valuable to my family. Taking those things home and translating them beyond the workplace is very important.
What can the NAPT association do to help your mission?
Keep safety as a priority. We are a national safety organization, so it’s all that we talk about all day every day. We don’t expect it to be everyone’s top priority, but we think that it should be near the top always. I think that you all do that well already, but I encourage your members to get involved in what’s happening beyond just your association and learn how you can use the association’s voice to advocate for safety policies for everyone.