Texas School Bus Seating Capacity

McAllen writer wins Texas Observer short story contest judged by Larry McMurtry

Brian Allen Carr runs a lap at Bill Schupp Park in just six and a half minutes, but what’s really racing is his mind.

The 32-year-old fiction writer has conceived many a storyline during his regular jogs at the North McAllen park, and the gravel track has proven to be fertile creative ground --- Carr’s piece “ The First Henley ” was named the winner of the Texas Observer ’s first annual short story contest Tuesday. Carr’s story was hand-picked by none other than Larry McMurtry, the iconic Texas author of Lonesome Dove , Terms of Endearment and The Last Picture Show , who praised its “good sense of atmosphere,” according to the magazine .

The Observer describes “The First Henley” as a “tale of an Old West gunfighter stripped of his capacity for holding a gun, a story which mixes fact and fiction and culminates at the first-ever Lone Star Fair in 1852 Corpus Christi.”

It’s a “cowboy myth … intended to poke fun at the cowboy myth,” Carr said --- a model McMurtry has used many times throughout his prolific career. The contest received entries from throughout the world.

Carr suspects McMurtry might have picked up on his “regional voice.” “I sound as though I come from somewhere,” he told Festiva in a recent interview. That Texas “voice” transcends the page --- Carr speaks with a langorous drawl that points back to his childhood homes of Austin and Corpus Christi.

Carr has worked as an English instructor at South Texas College for the past two years. He followed a girlfriend down to the Rio Grande Valley in his mid-20s, then earned a degree from The University of Texas-Pan American. His only knowledge of the Valley came from reading William S. Burroughs, the legendary Beat writer who lived in South Texas in the late 1940s . He’s formed his own opinion on the region after living here for several years.

“It’s not exactly America,” he said. “It’s kind of it’s own little country.”

The Observer’ s prize comes on the heels of his first book, Short Bus , a collection of his original short stories published earlier this year by the Texas Review Press.

To varying degrees, much of Carr’s dark, witty fiction is rooted in reality.

In “Short Bus,” the book’s title story, a special-education teacher “with his own disabilities” takes his students on a trip to rob a bank. Carr himself worked with special-ed children at McAllen’s Nikki Rowe High School. “A lot of it is drawn from real life, probably too much,” he said, but it’s “pushing reality beyond the point where it could go.

The Debate Over School Bus Seat Belts, Part Two | Texas Personal ...

Earlier this week, we discussed the safety concerns brought up after a tragic Texas bus accident took the lives of two teenage girls. Experts say that the design of standard yellow buses, which make up approximately 80 percent of American school buses, make seat belts unnecessary in the large vehicles. Buses are significantly heavier than standard vehicles, and passengers sit higher, providing more protection in a crash.

In addition, when the modern school bus design was created, the seats were conceptualized using a passive system called compartmentalization. Although maximizing capacity is an objective of the system, its main goal is to form a sort of protective bubble for passengers. In the event of a crash, the seats, which are covered with four inches of thick foam, will both absorb impact and keep the students from traveling through the air.

Research indicates that bus weight and seat design work renders school buses much safer than cars. Of the 24 million children that ride school buses every year, only about six die in a bus accident, while 800 die annually while walking, biking, or being driven to school, according to statistics collected by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Despite these safety claims, many proponents of seat belts claim that more needs to be done to protect children. Yet cost and safety concerns cause many school officials to shy away from school buses. Not only is there the additional financial burden of actually installing the restraints, officials say, but adding belts will take away precious seat room, ultimately requiring more buses and even more cost. In addition, fewer students may equal less safety, according to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study, which warns that "even the smallest reduction in the number of bus riders could result in more children being killed or injured when using alternative forms of transportation".

These claims do not sway advocates such as Brad Brown, who lost his daughter, Ashley, in the 2006 Texas bus accident . He says he will continue to lobby for seat belt laws in Texas for one reason: "so no other dad has to bury a 16-year-old daughter simply because proper safety measures weren't taken".

HRIS abstracts

Traffic safety

The Educator's Guide to Texas School Law, Seventh Edition

Bus transportation

Bus and Recreational Vehicle Accident Reconstruction and Litigation