Students have been evacuated from a school bus stopped on a roadway. Where should they be led, and why that spot?

Explanation

The place to put them is 100 feet or more clear of the roadway, positioned toward the side oncoming traffic comes from, which is what sends wreckage away from the group rather than into it if another vehicle hits the bus. Both halves carry weight: the distance buys the margin, and which side they stand on decides where the debris travels. The same guidance shifts the spot to suit the hazard. With fire aboard, put them upwind. At a crossing, get them as far from the rails as they can be and facing whichever way a train would come from. With hazardous material spilled, upwind again and 300 feet or more out. If a tornado has been sighted and no building is close enough to shelter in, take them to a ditch or culvert nearby, far enough out that the bus cannot topple onto them, and have them lie face down with their hands over their heads, steering clear of anywhere liable to flash flood. Two wrong options hold the group in or beside the path of whatever might hit the bus, which is the hazard the distance answers, whether by lining them up behind it or by keeping them on the shoulder for convenience. The fourth takes the hazardous materials distance, applies it to every evacuation, and drops the direction, keeping the number that is easiest to remember and losing the part that does the protecting. 49 CFR 383.123(a)(2)(ii) makes safe evacuation a required knowledge area and states no distance, so these figures are the manual's.

Source: 49 CFR 383.123(a)(2)(ii)