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Faulty System Misroutes School Bus Drivers' Safety Data

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By MARILYN BROWN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 10, 2007

TAMPA - The lack of a cohesive, centralized record-keeping system makes it difficult for Hillsborough County's school district to track the safety records of its bus drivers.

In some cases, the district's haphazard system has left gaps in finding out about and recording a bus driver's traffic infractions, which could determine whether the driver is taken off the road.

The difficulty in compiling, updating and locating a driver's traffic citations, evaluations and discipline records was evident last week.

It took officials more than a day to figure out how many accidents and complaints a driver had accumulated after she crashed her bus into the woods Tuesday, sending 11 students to the hospital with minor injuries.

'There's a gap out there,' said Glen Lathers, the district's manager of risk management, who oversees bus drivers' drug testing and compliance with the district's Safe Driver Plan, including accumulation of disqualifying points.

'Unfortunately, for the district, there is a paper time lapse.'

That gap includes drivers who don't report both work-related accidents and personal accidents within 24 hours and whose updated driving record hasn't yet reached the district, Lathers said.

Without that information, the points for infractions assigned by the state or the district that can add up to the loss of license or job aren't tallied, he said.

'Probably five or six times a year, we find points not reported,' Lathers said. He is responsible for the district's Safe Driver Plan, which suspends a driver for three days if he or she accumulates seven points in a year.

Failure of a drug test or 10 points within a year merit termination, he said.

'If they have more than five points in a year, that's a problem,' Lathers said. The driver gets a warning and must attend a defensive driving class, he said.

Records are evaluated based on the seriousness and frequency of offenses.

'If they fail to report an accident, that's an automatic 10 points. You can't drive for us anymore,' Lathers said.

'What In The Heck Is Going On?'

One disconnect has been that someone in transportation was responsible for keeping up with bus drivers' accidents and traffic violation records, and Lathers for evaluating those that were sent to him for possible action.

The district accesses the state's cumulative driving records three times a year, and checks the state's weekly updates and sends that information to transportation, said John Saffold, the driver trainer who said he has reviewed those records for 22 years.

He said he found three drivers last year with too many points to drive.

How current those records are for 1,100 bus drivers is a question.

Lathers said the records of drivers whom the transportation department found with five or more points were supposed to be sent to him for monitoring along with the records for employees who drive maintenance and other district vehicles he oversees.

'About three months ago, I started asking for most of the records to make sure we're keeping up with all the drivers. I said, 'What in the heck is going on in here?''

Hillsborough's current system keeps personnel records in the main administration building in downtown Tampa, discipline records in another building in Ybor City and another file for each bus driver with training, warning letters and other information in the transportation department's Harney Road headquarters in Thonotosassa.

Lathers said late last week that he was told his safety office - in Drew Park near Raymond James stadium - will now be responsible for checking all bus drivers' records. He said he has a full-time employee who can devote the time to keeping them current. 'I'm not going to tolerate this,' Lathers said of the confusion over finding records last week.

'I need to see what's going on out there.'

Shuler's Record Reflects Data Woes

After 63-year-old Eugenie Shuler ran off the road Tuesday, her employment and driving record was mostly a mystery.

The district released portions of a personnel file with satisfactory evaluations and a state driving report showing four points assessed on her license for careless driving that led to an accident in 2006.

Linda Kipley, the district's general manager for professional standards, said the reason she didn't find a discipline record in her office for Shuler on Tuesday was that Shuler's last name was originally misspelled. The accident happened about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, and a district spokeswoman gave out the wrong spelling at the scene. That was corrected with a written statement at 11:30 a.m.

It was the next day before the district connected Shuler's driving record to two minor school bus accidents and found that Shuler had 10 complaints on file in one regional office. Wednesday night, the district released a report of a telephone complaint that came in just 15 minutes before Tuesday's accident saying Shuler had been driving too fast.

How many offices had pieces of Shuler's driving history remained unclear Thursday, even to the district's new general director of transportation, John Franklin. He was hired by the district in late June to fix a transportation department that was described by district consultants as inefficient and ineffective.

Franklin said Thursday that 'everybody should be in a database where someone can come in and access their record. There should be an alert that comes out when something changes.'

Right now, complaints aren't being tracked, he said. Having Lathers keep track of driving records makes sense, Franklin said.

'It's a natural alignment to have it in the safety department.'

Why the district doesn't make the state's database of driving records available to the transportation and safety office on a continuing basis so it can directly check on drivers was a question no one could answer.

Instead, the district has been printing out the thick reports several times a year and sending them to Saffold.

Requests must be made to the district for specific records, Lathers said.

'We talked about that Thursday,' he said. 'I'd like to make random checks.'

Franklin said he is still learning how things have been done in the transportation department. In the meantime, he said he has started his own database of complaints and drivers to monitor.

He vowed to get his department's records in order.

'It's an area that needs light shone upon it,' Franklin said.

Reporter Marilyn Brown can be reached at (813) 259-8069 or mbrown@tampatrib.com.

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