Districts turn to retirees for school bus drivers

The driver who recently pulled a school bus into the path of an oncoming SUV was old enough to be the great-grandfather to several 12-year-old passengers who were treated for minor injuries.

Marshall W. St. John, a substitute driver for West Valley School District, was cited for failure to yield the right of way when he pulled onto Highway 27 near Freeman High School, the Washington State Patrol said. School officials said St. John was taken off the substitute list while the accident is being investigated.

St. John is 80 years old. He is one of 97 people over age 75 statewide who hold a license to drive a school bus, state officials said. Twenty live in Spokane County, including St. John and a West Valley substitute driver who is 78.

“Those numbers represent people who are licensed. … It doesn’t necessarily reflect the number of (elderly) bus drivers out on the road,” said Brad Benfield, a spokesman for the Washington State Department of Licensing in Olympia.

There is no indication that St. John’s age contributed to the Dec. 7 accident with a busload of Centennial Middle School volleyball players. The principal at Freeman has said that particular intersection – at Jackson Road and Highway 27 – is a bad one for accidents.

While a person must be at least 21 to drive a school bus, there is no mandatory retirement age. Any commercial driver seeking a school bus license must pass a physical exam every two years.

“Some people at 80 are still quite young,” said Verna Landy, spokeswoman for First Student, the transportation conglomerate formerly known as Laidlaw, which contracts to provide busing for Spokane Public Schools. Other Eastern Washington districts have their own buses and hire their own drivers.

According to the Federal Highway Administration, the ability to deal with complex traffic situations decreases with age, and older drivers are more likely to be involved in multiple-vehicle crashes at intersections.

In addition, drivers 75 years and older have higher rates of fatal motor vehicle crashes than drivers in other age groups, except teenagers, the FHA said.

A report by the federal Government Accountability Office found that older drivers, beginning at age 75, are involved in nearly eight fatal crashes per 100 million miles driven – slightly more than the youngest drivers, ages 16 to 24. Drivers ages 65 to 74 have about three fatal accidents per 100 million miles.

Although two years is standard, the state can require a driver to have a physical exam every year if there are health concerns. St. John had been cleared through October 2008, due to excellent health, West Valley officials said.

“We are required to make sure that a driver can get from the driver’s seat through the emergency door at the back of the bus within 20 seconds,” Landy said. “If they can do that, they are pretty agile.”

Landy said she did not know how many of First Student’s drivers are over age 75.

Like many districts, West Valley often hires retirees to drive school buses. It’s the same at the nearby Mead and Central Valley school districts, though neither currently has drivers over 75.

“Honestly, it’s tough to find bus drivers,” said Central Valley spokeswoman Melanie Rose.

Most drivers work part time on a split schedule, morning and afternoon.

“The people who tend to be able to make that schedule work for them are the retirees,” Rose said.

“We rely on that physical to tell us” whether a driver is fit, Rose said.

Mead School District north of Spokane relies heavily on retirees, mostly in their 50s and 60s, for driving buses, officials said.

“We try to make sure they are physically capable and mentally alert,” said Jack Lewis, Mead’s director of transportation. “There’s a pretty stringent test they must go through in order to get that school bus endorsement.”