School Bus Safety - Why Don't School Buses Have Seatbelts?

My five-year old daughter went on her first field trip this week with her pre-school.  They travelled about 2 miles to the local library, but the big part is that the kids rode on a school bus to get there (only the 5-year-olds were allowed) – the first time on a school bus for most of the kids and they were sooooo excited!  I was excited for my daughter, but also very nervous because school buses do not have seat belts.  I’ve always known this, but not until my daughter was about to be riding on one did it outrage me.  Why, why, why don’t school buses have seat belts?!?  Some argue that it’s so the kids can exit quickly in an emergency – but what if that emergency is an accident in which the bus flips over??  If that happened, there would be small bodies being thrown about violently! 

I had planned on joining the classes at the library anyway, so I decided to follow the school bus just to make myself feel better about it.  Thankfully, the bus and all of the kids and teachers on it made it safely the two miles to the library.  I drove my daughter home with me from the library, though!

Since then, I haven’t been able to get the thought out of my head and I wondered why there aren’t parents all over the country up in arms about school buses not having seat belts.  I just don’t get it.  Then, coincidently, my mom forwarded a link to me for this video, which is fantastic – check it out: 

This video was created by Daniel Cox for the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership (UK), who is working to increase road safety and reduce road casualties across Sussex.  The SSRP is promoting a campaign called ‘Embrace Life’ to remind people of the importance of wearing seat belts.

This video has become an internet phenomenon, with more than 9.5 million views at You Tube.  The writer / creator of the video, Daniel Cox, stated that he wanted to create a “visual metaphor” that addresses how a single decision or moment in someone’s day can influence their own and their loved ones’ lives greatly.  Using slow motion to tell the story helps create the emotion of the dramatic event; it really draws you into their world and makes you feel connected to it.  Personally, I think this video is genius and it should be shown world-wide. 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), one of the most influential government agencies when it comes to public safety on roads, claims that school buses are among the safest forms of transportation currently available. Many factors account for this. School buses are taller and heavier than most other vehicles on the road and they generally travel at moderate speeds. In a crash, the high seat backs prevent children from being thrown great distances, and impact-absorbing materials used in the seats soften the blow. The NHTSA has actually stated that there’s no compelling reason to believe that the use of seat belts on school buses should be federally mandated! Seriously?!

The NHTSA claims that most accidents involving school buses have been either frontal or rear collisions and kids were protected by a safety feature called compartmentalization. The problem with this is that the concept of compartmentalization came about some forty years ago by UCLA engineers who performed a series of school bus crashes and determined that the main culprit of injuries in a crash were the inadequate seats. These engineers made recommendations and explained how to compartmentalize the seats, which included side panels and lap belts, in addition to higher-backed, padded, well-anchored seats. The engineers claimed that lap belts would provide substantial additional protection. The problem is that not all of the recommendations were ever implemented, only a few.

The other problem is that high seat backs don't help much when a bus is hit from the side or rolls over. The national Parent-Teacher Association has called for seat belts on new buses. According to Education Week,more than two dozen state legislatures have considered mandatory seat belts over the years, yet only New York and New Jersey currently require them. Why??

There's also currently a pilot study being conducted in Alabama to assess the impact of the installation of lap/shoulder seat belts on a limited number of Alabama school buses.  There are about 12 new buses that have various types of three-point seat belts and the study will provide information about school buses with seat belts for possible adoption throughout the state and the nation.

Some people believe that seat belts wouldn’t necessarily make school buses safer and that they would actually increase the number of serious injuries.  Shoulder harnesses aren't practical in buses as they are currently designed and lap belts can potentially cause more head and abdominal injuries because in a collision the wearer is jerked forward from the waist.  Some also believe that seat belts on school buses would hamper rescue or evacuation efforts when older students or adults have to spend precious time unbuckling young riders.  I have yet to hear anyone complain about seat belts hampering the rescue of people in regular automobile crashes, even though they sometimes do – what happened to “seat belts save lives”?!

There’s also the argument that seat belts would not help save lives in the event of fire or submersion.  That might be true, but it’s also true for regular vehicles, yet they still have seat belts and the law still requires that seat belts be worn. 

Of course there’s always the cost-benefit issue.  It’s been estimated that the cost to outfit the approximately 440,000 school buses in the United States would cost nearly $800 million.  One report claimed that the annual death toll involving school buses is 11 and when the annual death toll is only 11, the benefit does not outweigh the cost.  Well, I think 11 children dying per year in school bus related accidents is 11 too many!