Interpretation ID: 20551.drn

Father Joseph Rinaldo, S.C.
Administrator
St. Louis Center
16195 Old U.S. 12
Chelsea, MI 48118-9646

Dear Father Rinaldo:

This responds to your request for an interpretation of whether your institution for developmentally disabled children must use school buses to transport the children. Your letter states that the Saint Louis Center provides "only therapeutic and social services" for the children and that your "residents are bused to the public school" by the local school district in school buses. Because we regulate the manufacture and sale of new school buses and not their use, whether you must use school buses is determined by Michigan State law. As to whether you must be sold a school bus when you purchase a new bus, we believe the answer to that question is no.

Some background information may be helpful. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ( NHTSA) is authorized to issue and enforce Federal motor vehicle safety standards (FMVSS) applicable to new motor vehicles. Our statute at 49 U.S.C. 30112 requires any person selling or leasing a new vehicle to sell or lease a vehicle that meets all applicable standards. Accordingly, persons selling or leasing a new "school bus" must sell or lease a vehicle that meets the safety standards applicable to school buses.

Our statute defines a "schoolbus" as any vehicle that is designed for carrying a driver and more than 10 passengers and which, NHTSA decides, is likely to be "used significantly" to transport "preprimary, primary, and secondary" students to or from school or related events. 49 U.S.C. 30125. By regulation, the capacity threshold for school buses corresponds to that of buses -- vehicles designed for carrying more than ten (10) persons. For example, a 15-person van that is likely to be used significantly to transport students is a "school bus."

Because our laws apply only to the manufacture and sale of new motor vehicles, we do not prohibit institutions like the St. Louis Center that care for children from using their large vans to transport school children even when the vehicles do not meet Federal school bus safety standards. However, each State has the authority to set its own standards regarding the use of motor vehicles, including school buses, so you should also check Michigan law to see if there are regulations about how you must transport your children.

As to whether a "school bus" must be sold to a facility when the facility wishes to purchase a new bus, the answer depends partly on whether the facility provides educational programs (and thus is a "school") or is strictly custodial (and thus is not considered by us to be a school). However, in recent interpretations (see the attached July 23, 1998 letter to Mr. Don Cote) we have stressed that the answer also depends on the purpose for which the bus is used. If a custodial center were purchasing a new bus to use significantly to transport students to or from a school or school-related events, a dealer knowing of this purpose is required to sell a school bus. In the situation you present, it does not appear that the St. Louis Center is providing "significant" transportation for the children to or from school or for school-related events. Thus, we believe that a dealer is not obligated to sell you a school bus.

In fully addressing the type of vehicle that should be used to transport your children, I ask that you take the following into consideration. At a June 8, 1999, public meeting, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued the attached abstract of a special investigative report on nonconforming buses. The NTSB issued the report after investigating in 1998 and 1999, four crashes in which 9 people were killed and 36 injured when riding in "nonconforming buses." NTSB defines "nonconforming bus" as a "bus that does not meet the FMVSSs specific to school buses." Most of the victims, including eight of the fatalities, were children.

In the abstract of its report, the NTSB issued several Safety Recommendations, including the following that was directed to child care providers such as the National Association of Child Care Professionals, the National Child Care Association, and Young Mens' and Young Women's Christian Associations:

Inform your members about the circumstances of the accidents discussed in this special investigation report and urge that they use school buses or buses having equivalent occupant protection to school buses to transport children.

In conclusion, we wish to emphasize that school buses are one of the safest forms of transportation in this country, and that we therefore strongly recommend that all buses that are used to transport school children be certified as meeting NHTSA's school bus safety standards. In addition, using 15-person vans that do not meet NHTSA's school bus standards to transport students could result in liability in the event of a crash.

I hope this information is helpful. For more information about the safety features of a school bus, I am enclosing NHTSA's publication: "School Bus Safety: Safe Passage for America's Children." I am also enclosing NHTSA's February 1999 "Guideline for the Safe Transportation of Pre-school Age Children in School Buses."

If you have any further questions about NHTSA's programs please feel free to contact Dorothy Nakama at this address or at (202) 366-2992. Information about NTSB's nonconforming bus report is available from the NTSB's Public Affairs Office at (202) 314-6100.

Sincerely,
Frank Seales, Jr.
Chief Counsel
Enclosures
ref:VSA#571.3
d.9/29/99