With a shortage of school bus drivers affecting students and parents in New Jersey and across the nation, officials are looking at changing the lengthy process to get a commercial driver’s license and the endorsements to drive the big yellow bus.
The shortage has caused districts to change the start and dismissal times at schools, prompted curtailment of “courtesy busing” of students who live less than 2 miles from school in some towns and prompted Camden to offer parents $1,000 to drive their own children to and from school.
Bus companies and school districts have increased pay and offered bonuses to attract experienced drivers.
Training new drivers to get a commercial driver’s license is a lengthy process, just for knowledge and road testing, which can take 60 days before a driver is road ready, said Chloe Williams NJ School Bus Contractors Association president.
“We are trying hard to try and break down some of the barriers in getting a CDL to start with. We are looking at a school bus only CDL,” she said.
Now, a potential school bus driver has to learn the same knowledge as a truck driver to get the basic Class B CDL, in addition to information they need to know the get a passenger, school bus and air brake endorsement, she said.
“We take exact same test as the over the road truck drivers take,” Williams said. “It’s way above our head on actual equipment and having to test on it.”
Trainee school bus drivers have to learn and take knowledge tests about equipment they’ll never drive, which includes mechanical knowledge of trucks, she said.
“Now, we have to teach them about equipment under the hood and we don’t want our drivers under the hood,” Williams said. “They are within 15-20 miles from their home base.
If a bus breaks down, a bus company tech will bring a replacement bus to them and deal with getting the disabled bus back to the shop, she said.
But that option would mean a change on the federal level, since commercial driver’s licenses have been regulated since 1986 by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
“The Agency has received informal requests to create a new license category for school bus drivers, one with less technical/mechanical inspection requirements,” said Duane DeBruyne an FMCSA spokesman.
Doing that means going through a lengthy regulatory process and it might not provide a short-term solution to the school bus driver shortage.
“Creating a new ‘school bus only’ license category would have to be completed through the federal rule-making process, which cannot be completed short-term,” he said.
Conducting a research study or studies to provide factual data that the same level of safety would be achieved would be necessary to create a new standalone CDL, DeBruyne said.
There also could be downsides for drivers that would limit their employability.
“Such a license would limit the holder to strictly operating school buses only, while a Class B CDL would allow the (license) holder to work broadly across the passenger carrier industry,” he said.
Instead, the FMCSA is doing a pilot program to modernize the CDL skills test that make it more efficient and reduce the time it takes for CDL trainees to get their license, DeBruyne said.
“It would address some of the technical/mechanical testing requirements that school district/school bus officials have asked to be removed,” he said. “A pillar feature of the pilot program to modernize the CDL skills test is the emphasis on road safety conduct, and less on memorization not directly tied with road safety.”
The CDL modernization pilot program is presently underway in three States: Maryland, New Hampshire, and Virginia, he said.
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Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com.
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Bus driver shortage could be eased if changes made to licensing process, advocates say - NJ.com
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