Twenty-five million children in the U.S. ride the bus to and from school, spending an average of an hour and a half on a bus each day. Depending on the design of your child’s bus, it could be emitting harmful particles.
Idling is when a vehicle is in park, but the engine is still running. When diesel school buses idle, it poses a health risk to children and school staff. Bus idling increases the concentration of dangerous fine particulate matter (soot) pollution on and around the school buses and pollutes the air inside the school building. This puts students, drivers and school staff at risk for health complications such as asthma attacks, heart attacks and acute bronchitis.