School Bus

Into the lives of parents with school-age children has come a great convenience, the School Bus, which rolls through suburban streets or coughs along country ruts, collecting and depositing pupils at certain corners at certain hours. The dallying child who misses the morning Bus will have to walk to school, and schools are farther from home than they used to be. There's less chance for fighting, for getting dirty, for catching cold in the Bus than there was when children went by foot. But also, though the Bus driver is a man carefully chosen for steadiness and reliability, there is danger. Last week, horrid tragedy fell upon the School Bus at Berea, Ohio, 13 mi. from Cleveland.

Ten chattering youngsters were bussing to the Brook Park Elementary School, across the road from Cleveland's Airport. Some peered out of the frosty windows at the light snow on Sheldon Road. Others made last-minute efforts at homework. The bus stopped at a grade crossing on the New York Central R. R. while a passenger train clanked by on the gleaming tracks. Driver and children watched the swaying cars. None thought to look up or down the broad right-of-way.

The passenger train lumbered past. The driver put the bus in gear, started across the tracks. Those who were still looking out the windows had one short moment of agony. An express train shrieked out from behind the passenger cars, dove into the bus, splintered its thick body like a fruit crate. The wreckage stopped 160 yds. away. The driver and nine of the ten children were killed.

At Columbus, the wheels of governmental action were given a spin. Shocked by 16 school child fatalities from Ohio motor accidents in the past month, Governor Myers Y. Cooper wrote a stern letter to Director of Education John L. Clifton. Said he: "It is evident that these accidents were avoidable if proper precautions had been taken." The Director of Education, in turn, urged two-man bus crews, strict vigilance at grade crossings. The dead driver of the Brook Park bus was held culpable by the coroner.

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