What's the backstory behind the US federal regulation that requires buses to stop at railway crossings?
score:7
(Partial answer.) Traffic Laws Annotated [pdf], by the US Department of Transportation (1979), pins the introduction to 1930, albeit without much context, on page 209:
Tracking referenced to the Uniform Vehicle Code from 1930 yields a "Report of Committee on Laws and Ordinances: The President's Highway Safety Conference" from 1949, which offers:
The first Model Traffic Ordinance was prepared in 1927-28 by the National Conference on Street and Highway Safety. It was reviewed and revised by the Conference in 1930, and again in 1934.
That would suggest that a backstory, if any, can be narrowed down to an event that occurred before that report was completed in 1928.
Googling for "train bus crash 1928" suggests there actually was a school bus crash. I'm unable to browse "Safety and economy in school bus transportation - Page 147" by Austin Ruel Meadows (1940) using Google Books, nor am I able to locate the reference on Wikipedia, but Google's snippet is quite promising:
On April 10, 1928, an L. & N. passenger train struck a school bus at the railroad crossing at Mountain Creek, Alabama, killing 1 pupil and injuring 24 ... Witnesses testified that the bus was traveling at a slow rate of speed at the time of the crash.
This doesn't necessarily mean it's the actual backstory, but it seems like an event that could have put school buses on a regulator's radar if it wasn't there already.
Googling the same with 1927 gives another hint, this time in "Decennial Digest, American Digest System - Volume 26 - Page 1294". I cannot access it either, but the snippet is just as interesting:
- Failure to station flagman at crossing may be considered by jury in determining railroad's negligence. — Gray v. ... train at railroad crossing where flagman was stationed, on conflicting evidence, question of whether flagman was present and signaled ... Evidence in action for injuries to bus passenger in collision with railroad car at crossing held to justify submission of case to jury on ground of ...
Put another way, there were court battles at the time, pitching victims on the one hand side, and whoever they were seeking to blame, and at least one of those involved a railroad company that didn't have a flagman at a railway crossing.
Being a bit speculative here, I think it stands to reason that the railroad companies would have lobbied hard to get the liability out of their way, and put the onus of making sure the railway crossing was safe on car drivers rather than man each of those with a flagman.
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