A number of crashes in the past year have involved school buses in the Brazos Valley. While these crashes have been relatively minor, with mild if any injuries, the incidents do highlight the need for proper training of school bus drivers.


Much of that training is based at the Texas A&M Engineering Extension, or TEEX. Hector Silva serves as an instructor in that TEEX program as well as the College Station ISD director of transportation.

Silva says Texas has some of the most- and best-trained drivers in the country.

"They go through school's training to get their CDL, then the state also requires a 20-hour course that the person has to go through," said Silva. "After that, every three years they have to go through a re-certification course."

Silva demonstrated specific maneuvers that school bus drivers are taught, See the video player above for the full demo.

"A lot of the accidents that happen on school buses don't usually happen when the bus is going forward; it's going backwards and turning," Silva said. "So we focus our training on that."