Introduction 1099: Making Buses Smarter
I invite the reader to imagine that you have a child with special needs who is seven or eight years old. The child has no cell phone, and is bussed to and from school. But, today, there's a thunderstorm. It’s an hour after your child’s scheduled drop off time, and there's no sign of the bus. You, the parent, call the school, and all the school knows is that the bus left on time — they have no idea where it is currently. And not only that, they have no way to find out.
This is a horrible scenario, but unfortunately, it's not so far from what some parents can and have experienced. The reality is that school buses in New York City have no locator on them that would allow schools to find out where they are, or to communicate with the driver. And there is no way for parents to find out the location of the bus or communicate with the driver, either.
It's sad that’s the reality, but there is good news. There is an amendment to the Administrative Code of New York City proposed, called Introduction 1099 (“1099”). 1099 requires two-way radios, cell phones, and tracking devices be placed on all school buses.
In doing the legislative preparation for this amendment, the NYC council discovered that there was a severe need for a change in the law. They found that every day, more than 160,000 children are on buses or other Department of Education vehicles, but that lack of real-time communication with those vehicles is a big operational obstacle for members of the DOE schools and parents.
The legislative body also found that there was no way to find those buses without the equipment that's proposed in this amendment. That means changes to schedules based on things like traffic or weather can't be communicated to the parent. Bus operators can't adjust pickup and drop-off times. In an emergency, the inability to communicate with anyone outside the bus could result in disastrous consequences, which can jeopardize the lives of students.
The proposed amendment would require that all DOE buses have a GPS tracking device and two-way radios or cell phones so that the bus operator can communicate with somebody outside the bus. The GPS location would be made available to authorized individuals, which would include parents.
This is in the last stages of becoming law, which is very exciting. This has been a long fight for many special education advocates in NYC. As one of these last steps, there's an open City Council meeting Tuesday, October 16, 2018 at 1 PM, in the New York City Hall's council chambers, which means it's open to testimony from members of the public.
Gottlieb and Gottlieb are, and have been, in full support of this legislative development, and we encourage all of our readers that have firsthand experiences with this sort of problem to come out and speak to the City Council.
Jonathan Gottlieb
Partner
195 Montague Street
14th Floor
Brooklyn Heights, NY 11201
Jonathan@GottliebFirm.com
(646) 820-8506