ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 3, 1996 TAG: 9604030057
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: C5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: COX NEWS SERVICE
An Ohio girl who died beneath the wheels of her school bus a year ago was remembered with lapel ribbons at a Senate hearing on bus safety Tuesday, but a later death - of a New York girl in February - underlined the lawmakers' frustration over continuing hazards.
``What do you have to do?'' groused Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio.
For more than a year, DeWine has pumped urgency into the issue of refitting school bus handrails so they can't snag clothing and drag a child as a bus pulls away from a stop.
Letters have been sent to state and local school offices, the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration has dispatched field workers all over the country, and officials of that agency have found a company willing to fix the handrails on many buses for free.
But the accidents keep happening. The New York girl, Andrea Chen of White Plains, was the sixth child to die in this way since 1991, and officials fear the popularity of baggy clothes could make the problem even more common.
DeWine took up the cause after Brandie Browder, a 13-year-old from Beavercreek, Ohio, died in an identical accident last winter.
DeWine told the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee that his office had asked ``safety officials in all 50 states whether they inspect their school buses for these potentially deadly handrails. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia said `no,''' DeWine said.
``These deaths are all totally, totally preventable,'' said William Schenck, prosecuting attorney for Greene County, where Browder was killed. ``Nothing has offended me as much as people's blase attitude about this.''
Schenck prosecuted the bus driver in the Browder case, and she was convicted of vehicular homicide for not making sure all children had safely cleared the bus before driving away from the stop. She was not sentenced to jail.
DeWine said he's hoping to avoid writing a federal law to require states or school districts to inspect their buses for the dangerous handrails. He's hoping the rails can be fixed, and drivers can be better schooled to watch for children, through administrative changes.
That's what happened in Ohio, where the Ohio State Highway Patrol added handrails to its inspection lists. Buses that have the bad handrails aren't allowed to leave school lots.
LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB