Making Safe School Buses for China's Kids

John McKinney sat outside a Beijing Starbucks, sipping coffee and snapping photos of the traffic with his iPhone. He was looking for school buses, or what passes for them in China. A dozen different school-bound vehicles rolled by on their morning runs. Some were minivans, others were shuttle buses painted yellow. Few looked as if they would meet the safety standards used in the U.S. since the 1930s—and therein lies a potential business proposition for McKinney, head of Navistar International’s bus business. “You look at the China market, and they have school buses, and they’re cheap,” says Daniel Ustian, Navistar’s chief executive officer. “They have scrimped on quality and safety standards, so this is our opportunity to step in.”

Last November, 19 kids were killed and 43 injured when 64 people riding in a nine-seat minivan en route to school hit a coal truck in Gansu province. A month later a driver swerved to avoid two electric bikes in Jiangsu province and lost control of his bus, which overturned into a river, killing 15 students and injuring 11. Seven students died after an overloaded minivan fell into a valley in Yunnan province in late December. The resulting outcry pressured the government to improve safety standards in May.