COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina’s education and highway safety leaders are using National School Bus Safety Week to remind drivers that the yellow bus in front of them is carrying children, pointing to state figures that show buses were involved in hundreds of crashes in 2024.
According to the latest numbers from the state Department of Public Safety, school buses were in 508 wrecks in 2024. Two of them killed someone and two more left people seriously hurt. In 403 of the crashes, the only damage was to property.
State Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver is scheduled to appear Tuesday, Oct. 20, with Col. Christopher Williamson of the state Department of Public Safety, Highway Patrol representatives and transportation staff from school districts at a joint news conference at the Richland County bus depot on Wilson Boulevard. Education Department officials plan to lay out steps the agency has taken to make bus travel safer, and troopers will walk through the traffic rules that apply around buses and what motorists can do to protect students.
The core message for drivers is simple: stay alert in school zones, expect buses to stop often to pick up or drop off children, and obey the bus’s signals and the state laws meant to protect kids who cross the road.
The observance runs Oct. 19-23 under the theme Safe Rides, Everyday Heroes. It is an annual national campaign that pulls together schools, transportation workers and law enforcement to promote safe driving and prevent bus-related crashes.
Section: More Beaufort SC education news
Beaufort education business profiles
Filed under: Beaufort SC Education News
