It's opening line stated that 'a ride on a school bus may prove hazardous to one's health'. It also stated that children who ride a diesel school bus may be exposed to four times the diesel exhaust as someone riding in a car behind the bus, according to the National Resources Defense Council and Coalition for Clean Air reports. The NRDC and CCA reports found excess exhaust levels inside buses were more the eight times the average levels found in California air and posed a great cancer risk.
Before conducting their report, the NRDC did tests of their own. They rented four school buses and drove them for 20 hours along regular school bus routes. According the article, 'they compared the air quality inside the front and back of the bus and with the windows open and closed. They also tested air quality outside the bus and in a passenger car traveling ahead of it. The buses were tested while idling, climbing or descending hills, and traveling slowly with frequent stops'.
Both groups estimated that diesel exhaust exposure results in an additional 23 to 46 cancer cases per million children exposed. This level of cancer risk is 23 to 46 times the level the EPA says poses a significant cancer risk under the Federal Clean Air Act and the Food Quality Protection Act.
The reports also said that diesel exhaust is a major source of fine particles that can lodge in the lungs and worsen asthma. Diesels emit smog-forming oxides of nitrogen that have been linked to decreased lung function growth in children, whose faster breathing rate, less developed lungs and immature systems leave them more susceptible to air pollution.
Most school buses run on diesel fuel. Suggestions have been made to switch to buses that use another type of fuel. This could reduce a child's exposure to smog-forming chemicals by 43 percent and toxic particles by 78 percent, according to policy director for the Coalition for Clean Air.
Both groups also recommended bus drivers keep the windows open on buses where practical, seat children closer to the front of the bus, and switch to buses that use alternative fuels to keep exposure down.
Some bus makers challenged this idea of the buses being hazardous to kid's health. They argue that the buses in the reports were manufactured before the implementation of diesel engine emissions requirements in 1988.
Go To Page: 1
