As the days of summer vacation dwindle down to the end, bus drivers with the Carter County School System spent Wednesday focusing on safety.

The bus drivers took part in a special safety in-service training at the Carter County bus garage on Wednesday which included an evacuation drill.

“It’s all about the safety of the children,” Transportation Director Wayne Sams said.

Sams started the annual safety in-service prior to the start of the school year three years ago as a means of refreshing the bus driver’s familiarity with safety and procedures.

“One of the things I want to focus on for Carter County is more evacuation drills,” Sams said.

On Wednesday, the drivers took part in an evacuation drill that simulated a bus fire. The Elizabethton Fire Department assisted with the training and hooked up a fog machine inside one of the buses to simulate smoke from a fire. The bus drivers had to make their way through the smoke-filled bus as they practiced evacuating students.

Sams said he and Safety Coordinator Missy Ward went through a similar training drill over the summer and it made an impression on them of how quickly a bus can fill with smoke and how hard it is to see the students and help get them to safety.

“Leave here with that thought on your mind, of those kids on that bus,” Sams told the drivers.

One of the other purposes of the safety in-service is to keep the drivers up to date on changing regulations.

“Every year there are always changes in the state regulations,” Sams said.

One of the big changes this year is a state statute that requires each bus to have a visible decal displaying a telephone number for people to call with safety complaints and concerns regarding the operation of the bus. The new statute is in response to a fatal bus accident in Chattanooga that claimed the lives of several students.

State law mandates the decals be in place by January 1, 2018, but Sams said he is already starting to implement the decals now. He is implementing the mandate slowly at first to allow his staff to gauge the response and to learn how to handle the complaints before the decals are mandatory on all buses.