GNS In The News

Fatal Crash Likely To Start Debate Over Safety Of Vans

JOHN ALLARD and CAROLYN CLICK, Staff Writer

The deaths this week of six young South Carolinians in the collision of a tow truck and a van might serve as yet another wake-up call to parents, schools, day-care operators and state lawmakers, experts say.

"The time has come to have one set of requirements for the way we transport young children, whether they in are public schools or private schools," Rep. Joel Lourie, D-Richland said Thursday.

Five children died Tuesday, shortly after the crash at a rural Marlboro County intersection. A sixth child, 11-year-old Arielle Nicole Malachi, died Thursday morning at Palmetto Richland Memorial Hospital.

The van from the Wallace Family Life Center was delivering the children to their homes after their participation in an after-school program.

"My first thought was 'Oh, God, here it is again,"' said Columbia lawyer Richard Gergel. "It is the kind of thing that I feared would happen, but the mind doesn't want to contemplate it."

Gergel represented the parents of Jacob Strebler, a 6-year-old Columbia boy who was killed in 1994 when the school van he was riding in collided with a tanker truck.

Michael and Lisa Strebler won a $1 million judgment from the trucking company and driver, and an undisclosed amount from Healthwood Hall, Jacob's school, and Pulliam Ford Co., which sold the van to Heathwood.

A 1974 federal law prohibits auto dealers from selling new vans to schools, although it does not restrict sales of used vans or limit the use of vans owned by schools.

Last year. the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration amended the law to include childcare centers. Federal law now prohibits child-care centers from buying new passenger vans that will be used to transport children to and from school. In the Marlboro County case, federal investigators are seeking to determine who sold the van to the center.

The 1994 Columbia accident still draws publicity, in part because of Lisa Strebler's national crusade against the use of vans by schools and day care centers. The loophole in the law - the fact that dealers cannot sell the vans to schools or day care centers, but that those institutions may legally use the vans - has also thrown parents into some quandary.

"We see more and more parents taking their children to school. It's a big bucket of worms," Reece Yandle, executive director of the South Carolina Association of Christian Schools, said. "We've got to sit down and logically work out the problems with the law. There are loopholes people haven't thought about."

The loopholes in the federal law also limit its effectiveness, said Don Tudor, transportation director for the state Department of Education.

"There is a concern among child-care and school organizations about moving to a safer vehicle," Tudor said. "My perception is that there are more small school buses being used by private schools and child-care centers."

This year, Rep. Lourie is co-sponsoring legislation introduced last year by Rep. Scott Beck, RAiken, that would require all private schools and day-care operations to move to steel-reinforced buses or vans by July 2001. On Thursday, Rep. Doug Jennings, D-Marlboro, also signed onto the legislation, Lourie said.

Some day-care centers have already taken such precautions.

About a year ago, Shandon Presbyterian Child Development Center on Woodrow Street started using only school buses to transport children. It has six buses used to transport about 120 children enrolled in an after-school program.

In the wake of the Heathwood Hall accident, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral Child Care Center parked its 15-passenger van and purchased a 22-passenger bus.

"Buses are expensive," said Trinity's child-care director Anita Gypin. "But how can you put that against the life of a child?"

"Without a doubt, accidents occur, but at least I know this is all reinforced steel and if an accident, happens, we have done everything possible for the safety and welfare of children," she said.

Others, like North Trenholm Baptist Church, are out of the van business altogether. Now, said Roger Orman, the administrative pastor, parents drive children on limited field trips. But they must also file a copy of their valid driver's license, insurance and driver's record with the church.

"You don't have to worry about dropping your child off and wonder who is taking your child," said Orman.

Kappy Cannon, assistant principal at Forest Lake Elementary School, said she thinks day-care operators are making an effort to upgrade vehicles used to pick up children for after-school programs.

"We have definitely noticed an improvement in the transportation vehicles of area day-care facilities," she said.

Private schools and child-care centers have greater interest in buying school buses because of safety concerns about passenger vans, said Robert Coleman, president of Interstate Transportation Equipment Inc. in Hopkins. The company is a regional dealer for Thomas-Built buses.

"There has been an increase in bus purchases, but it's hard to pinpoint the actual numbers," Coleman said.

Dealers haven't reported any recent problems in complying with the law on selling passenger vans, said Pat Watson, executive vice president of the South Carolina Automobile Dealers Association.

"Dealers, child-care centers and schools are being very careful now and asking questions about how vans will be used," Watson said. "I know there aren't a lot of passenger vans being sold to schools."

Child-care centers often keep vans for years, said Kelley Jones, an attorney for the South Carolina Child Care Association. The vehicles don't wear out as quickly as school buses because they are driven less frequently. More than 100 child-care center owners belong to the association.

"A van is a significant investment for the centers," Jones said. "There is some voluntary movement among our members the purchase of school buses. A conversion couldn't be done overnight."

The high cost of buses also is a factor in the use of passenger vans for transporting children, said Yandle. It costs about $40,000 to buy a new small school bus, compared with about $22,000 for a new passenger van. His association works with 76 Christian schools and 350 childcare centers run by churches.

"The vans are still being extensively used by private schools as well as state and federal agencies," Yandle said. "Vans should be beefed up. But when you get hit by a truck, I'm not sure a school bus would be safer than a van."

But Gergel, the Columbia lawyer, said the odds of surviving a crash inside a bus, with its steelreinforced chassis, padded seats and expanded wheel base, are far greater than a passenger van.

"In the last 19 years in South Carolina, through all those millions of miles, we have had one death inside of a school bus," Gergel said. "So what are the chances of having five dead in Marlboro County?

"That tow truck just penetrated into the van and it wouldn't have happened with a school bus," he said. "The chances that the children would have all survived is overwhelming."

Gergel said he longs for the day when there will be only buses transporting children. But he is buoyed by the federal government's efforts in tightening up on errant dealers. Dealers who violate the law face a fine of up to $1,100.

"I think the Strebler case had a tremendous impact on the federal government," he said. "They dramatically increased the number of prosecutions under that law. Things are moving right in that direction."

But, he said, "the problem is there are so many out there. If the car dealers continue to thumb their nose at this law, there aren't enough prosecutors to find them."

Reprinted from The State newspaper
February 19, 1999