Shortly after the Lifeguard was introduced, Wayne held a nationwide contest soliciting ideas to improve school bus safety, with a new Lifeguard school bus as the grand prize. The winning entry was submitted by a school bus driver in Goochland County, Virginia, whose district received the new school bus. Her idea was to incorporate sound baffles in the ceiling of school bus bodies to help reduce driver distraction. Compact forms of such equipment were later developed used by Wayne and other school bus manufacturers when diesel engines (and their greater noise) became more widely available in conventional-style school buses (like the Lifeguard) in the 1980s.