Monday, September 7, 2009

The van debate: what cost a student's life?

Ron Campbell was dumbfounded in January 2008 when news broke that seven students and a teacher had died in a 15-seat van while driving home from a high school basketball game in New Brunswick.

The tragedy shocked many, but for Campbell it hit particularly close.

He and other volunteers — all experts in school bus transportation — had for several years been working with the Canadian Standards Association, writing the country’s first national standard for a safe, extracurricular school vehicle, designed to replace 15-seat vans.

“The people around the committee table were really speechless,” says Campbell, a school bus industry salesman.

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