Table 4. School Buses Having Occupant Casualties by Principal Point of Impact on School Bus, 1988-1997

Tables 4 and 5 present the number of school buses having at least one occupant casualty in single- and multi-vehicle collisions. Table 4 shows the number of buses and casualties by principal point of impact on the school bus. In collisions involving casualties to occupants of a school bus, the principal point of impact on the school bus was known for 73 percent of the buses involved. The greatest number of impact points (68 percent) were divided among the front (16 percent), rear (14 percent), left side (20 percent) and right side (18 percent). The number of principal points of impact reported as unknown, at 27 percent, includes one province and one territory that do not report this variable.

Between 1988 and 1997, 1,927 school buses were involved in collisions in which at least one occupant of a school bus was injured. The vast majority of those collisions (81 percent) involved another vehicle. In the 361 single-vehicle collisions, one occupant died and 1,163 occupants were injured. In the multi-vehicle collisions involving 1,566 school buses, 10 occupants perished and 3,578 were injured.

Although this information is not shown in a table, the first harmful events in the 361 single-vehicle collisions were as follows: running off the road – 98 collisions; striking a fixed object (ditch, post, guardrail, etc.) – 89 collisions; some other non-collision event – 86 collisions; striking a moving object (pedestrian, animal, train, etc.) – 18 collisions; overturning – 13 collisions; and other or unknown event – 57 collisions.