Toby Tire Visits Pleasant Hill Grade School
by Lindsey Rouse and Mackenzie Merryman
March 12, 2009
Toby Tire, the school bus safety mascot for Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, made a visit to Pleasant Hill High school to teach bus safety to young students. The presentation included a short video and many questions were answered by Toby from Mr. Shireman and the students. The assembly talked about the important safety precautions for getting on the bus and how to behave properly once you are on the bus.
According to Todd Randall, the number one safety precaution would be, “Stay away from the bus as much as possible. Get away from the vehicle.” He feels this can not be stressed enough and that most children truly do not understand the dangers that come along with. At an average the Toby Tire crew visits more than 1000 schools each year.
There are three Toby Tire robots that travel the schools. Mckayla Holman, a fourth grader said, “You need to be careful on the bus and listen to your bus driver.” The program has provided students a web site, www.ilsos.net, where they can get on and play a video game about learning the right precautions to take with school bus safety.
Lauren Hill, another fourth grader said she enjoyed the assembly very much because “It said not to be mean to little kids on the bus and be nice to them.” All of the kids seemed to really enjoy the assembly and Toby the Tire was the perfect way to bring education of school bus safety.
