May 21, 2006 2 min read

Rebecca Bruce of New Geneva was recently honored by the Pennsylvania School Bus Association as one of the state’s safest school bus drivers at its 23rd annual “Safe Driver Awards” program in Harrisburg. The association honored 78 drivers for their accident-free records of transporting children to and from school, as well as to school-related activities.

The Safe Driver Award was established to recognize the effort school bus drivers put into their own records of safety. The drivers acknowledged have a minimum of five years of continuous accident-free busing, with four drivers having more than 30 years. All the drivers have a combined safe driving record of more than 12 million miles.

Bruce has been employed by Laidlaw Education Services for the past eight years. She has driven more than 188,000 miles without an accident. Her route takes her throughout the Albert Gallatin School District.

In addition of PSBA’s Award, Bruce was recognized by special guest speaker, Capt. William Fraley, director of the Safety Program Division in the Pennsylvania State Police Bureau of Patrol. Fraley oversees the School Bus Safety Unit. Fraley commended the honorees for excelling in safe driving.

“Nationally, their contribution has played a large part in school buses being rated the safest form of highway transportation. An impressive rating, considering the fact that in the United States every school day, some 450,000 school buses transport more than 24 million to and from school and school-related activities. That’s like taking every resident of Florida, Massachusetts and Oregon for a ride in a school bus twice every day,” Fraley said.

“Closer to home, Pennsylvania has approximately 25,000 school buses traveling over 346 million miles of commonwealth highways, carrying over 1.5 million of our school children,’ he said.

“This really emphasizes the point that driving a school bus is not an easy job,” he said.