Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 22, 1993 TAG: 9312250112
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Which made Tuesday all the more ironic.
As the Montgomery native marked his final day as a school employee, snow-slickened roads kept buses idled and students at home for a one-day-early winter break.
It's just as well, because an emphasis on safety has been key to Bishop's seven years with the public school system, the first two in charge of the garage in Cambria.
Bishop, 42, resigned effective Tuesday, to launch a transportation consulting business with an emphasis on spreading the word about bus safety to other school divisions in Virginia.
Montgomery has hired Charles ``Skip'' Causey of Roanoke County to replace Bishop. Causey had worked as a terminal manager for Roadway Package System.
A Blacksburg High School graduate, Bishop lives in the Prices Fork area with his wife, Scarlet. His new business will have a family tie-in, of sorts. He's named it JustinTimecq Consulting and Instructional Services, a play on his grandson Justin's name.
As Montgomery's transportation supervisor, Bishop was responsible for the operation of the school bus system and for the maintenance of all school division vehicles. Bishop came to the system with 15 years of repair and management experience, including time as service manager for Homer Cox Ford in Christiansburg.
Lorenz V. Schoff, the system's director of facilities, maintenance and transportation, described Bishop as his ``right-hand man,'' who was the driving force behind a series of innovations in school bus safety in recent years. Those include:
The installation of strobe lights on buses. Montgomery conducted a pilot project for the state Department of Education beginning in 1989. After proving successful at increasing the visibility of school buses on the rainy, foggy days common to the New River and Ellett valleys and the hills and hollows around Elliston and Shawsville, the state approved them for use in all Virginia school divisions. Montgomery installed strobes on all of its buses by the 1992-93 school year.
The use of reflective tape on the rear of school buses, again to increase visibility. Montgomery did this, too, as a successful pilot project for the state.
The purchase of two-way radios for all 89 buses that run regular routes. When he arrived, Bishop said, only six to eight buses had two-way radios. By the 1991-92 school year, all regular route buses were radio equipped.
Retrofitting several older school buses with roof hatches as a pilot project in August 1992, and later buying new buses with the hatches already installed. The fleet now has 20 buses so equipped. The hatches are designed so that if a bus ever rolled on its side in an accident, small children would be able to climb out through them, Bishop said. They also provide extra ventilation during the warmer months.
Installing video cameras, including some that are nonfunctional, to monitor student behavior, or at least make students think their behavior is being monitored.
Montgomery County employs up to 120 school bus drivers, including substitutes. There are 102 buses in the fleet. During the last school year, those drivers transported 6,900 of the division's nearly 8,600 students twice a day.
Though safety on winding, narrow secondary roads such as North Fork Road between Interstate 81 and Elliston is always a concern, there has not been a major accident involving a county bus this school year.
Since joining the school division in 1986, Bishop can recall three serious bus accidents, but all with relatively minor injuries.
``We've had some pretty healthy crashes and come to find the children are not hurt,'' Bishop said.
``It says a lot for the buses,'' he said. ``The buses are built to take a lot. The kids are up high above the point of impact.''
But the best safety measure is, of course, prevention. Last year when a bus had a close call with a truck along the narrow, steeply sided stretch of North Fork Road known as the bluffs, Bishop wrote to all the local trucking companies asking them to avoid using the road during the peak times for school bus travel. Truckers voluntarily complied, Bishop said.
It's an emphasis on safety training and fleet operations that Bishop hopes to parlay into a new small business. Though he has no contracts currently, Bishop has advised the school systems in Radford and Williamsburg-James City County in the past and may be doing work there in the future.
Schoff said Bishop enjoys a statewide reputation as the man to see with transportation questions. ``He's constantly being called and asked advice over the phone,'' Schoff said.
Bishop said he'll be pleased, ``If I can just get out there and spread the message'' about school bus safety.
by CNB