WASHINGTON -- The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has decided that federal highway safety rules do not need to be extended to school-owned bus operations.
The FMCSA announced it was withdrawing a proposed rulemaking about whether Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations should cover interstate travel by local government-operated educational agencies.
The rule had been under consideration for more than two years. Congress had asked the predecessor agency of the FMCSA nearly six years ago to study the issue.
After re-reviewing comments that had been filed in 2001 and 2002, the agency decided no regulatory action is needed.
"FMSCA finds a lack of identifiable data indicating this segment of transportation is unsafe. The evidence shows that not a single fatal crash in the past 10 years would have been avoided had this proposed rule change been in existence," the agency said.
"Since the major source of safety benefits is potential fatal crashes avoided, FMCSA believes the benefits of imposing the FMCSRs on all interstate school transportation operations would be extremely low. Even though the costs of compliance would be modest, potential benefits would not appear to outweigh those costs," the agency added.
The decision means that school-owned bus operations will continue to be exempt from all FMCSRs except the commercial driver's license regulations and the controlled substances and alcohol testing regulations.
The United Motorcoach Association was among those organizations that filed comments in 2002 supporting extension of federal safety rules to school-owned bus operations.
It has long been UMA's belief that federal safety regulations should apply equally to all passenger-carrying vehicles, regardless of who or what operates them.
"The life-and-death responsibility inherent in the job demands nothing less," UMA said at the time.