Filed under: Government/Legal, Safety
End of unsafe era: (Some) School buses to get seat belts
My wife and I thoroughly trained our oldest daughter on seat belt safety, and it got to the point where she would scream at the top of her lungs if one of us didn't buckle our belts. When she first stepped foot on a school bus, she was terrified to learn that there were no seat belts and didn't understand how school buses were the exception to the seat belt rule. After many years of extensive study, however, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is changing that, at least for buses weighing under 10,000 lbs. The NHTSA's findings are the same as a 2002 study that smaller buses should receive belts and seat backs should be raised to 24 inches, but nothing was done about the findings back then. A series of bus crashes since has helped build the case to finally require the seat belts on certain buses and taller seat backs for them all.
Part of the reason for inaction was that adding seat belts would decrease seating capacity by 17% while also adding $40-$50 per seat to bus costs. With 25 million children riding 500,000 buses, that adds up to $100 million in annual costs that would, according to reports, save roughly one life per year. Statistics show that about 5 children die each year in school bus accidents, which represents .1 deaths per 100 million miles traveled. Kids that travel by bike to school die at a far greater rate of 12.2 per 100 million miles traveled, and kids who walk to school die at a rate of 8.7 per 100 million. The NHTSA's ruling goes into effect November 2011, which is five months before my oldest daughter rides the bus for the last time and gets into her own car.
[Source: Detroit News, photo by gareth_lofthouse | CC 2.0]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Gabagool 4:33PM (10/15/2008)
So the big auto lobbied the gov not to require seat belts in buses for kiddies? NICE.
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dkw 4:50PM (10/15/2008)
My read on the article was that buses are 100's of times safer then riding a bike or walking to school.
Not to sound harsh, but $100,000,000.00 annually, because 5 children are killed on buses each year seems a little extreme. Also consider that probably not all of those fatalities would be prevented by a safety belt, but say that we would save 4 lives per year.
There are many safety features that will save lives each year, but the point is the same again and again, no one ever wants to say "no" to something "for the children," but let's be realistic, $100,000,000.00 for the taxpayers to anti up every year for 4, hell make it all 5 people..... is that where we should spend the money?
How about using that money to improve the school that we're bussing them to in the first place.
dkw 4:58PM (10/15/2008)
"ANTE up" sorry.
tankd0g 5:52PM (10/15/2008)
And I wonder where that $100 million number came from? Perhaps the same company that said meeting CAFE regulations would add $5000 to ever car? G *cough* M. What a load of crap. Seat belts save far more from injury than they do from death.
Brn 9:56AM (10/16/2008)
Five children die a year. How much will that be reduced by spending $100 million? Not five!
My health insurance company has a $2 million cap on my benefits. They've put a value on my life. Why do we allow people to preach otherwise?
$100 million could be much better spent protecting lives in other ways. Blindly saying it's a good idea because children are involved is short sighted.
The real benefit of seat belts on buses is to keep kids from falling out of the seats during unusual maneuver (extremely abrupt lane change) of the vehicle. Call it for what it is.
Travis 4:42PM (10/15/2008)
we had seat belts on the buses we rode 15 years ago. not that we ever used them, but they had them...
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superjeff 4:43PM (10/15/2008)
And the death rate for kids driving their own cars to school?
I'd think if safety were your primary concern, you'd keep your daughter on the bus.
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That One Person 5:57AM (10/16/2008)
The kids at the local high school tear out of the parking lot everyday. Then they continue to do 60-70 in a 40 zone and wonder why they get a ticket (my friend's brother cried like a girl and said it wasn't fair when he was pulled over for doing 55). The police, for a month, sat in driveways near the school and pulled over as many kids as they could. Then someone who was high up in the city had a kid who got pulled over and told the cops to "chill out".
The Luigiian 4:58PM (10/15/2008)
From what I've seen, large buses usually don't get seat belts, but the short buses retarded and special needs children ride in have lap belts.
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Falcom 5:02PM (10/15/2008)
$100 million a year to save 1 life in 1 BILLION miles? That's the most ridiculous waste of money since the bailout.
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Falcom 5:03PM (10/15/2008)
why don't we issue helmets to all students walking to school? Surely that is cheaper then seat belts.
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cbird 5:06PM (10/15/2008)
A large bus can't get much safer with belts. In fact lap belts can be more deadly, children can slip through them and choke to death.
Physics sort of dictate the need for seat belts in smaller vehicles. Due to the speed and volume, a lot of the impact is absorb by the passenger.
In LARGE school buses its not that true. The small bus for the mentally challenged is another story.
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Egon 8:19AM (10/16/2008)
You're right. Lap belts alone are certainly not the answer, but for reasons other than those you cite. In a crash, without upper torso restraint, the midsection remains (more or less) stationary while the torso and legs move forward. The results can be severe or fatal head, abdominal, and lumbar spinal injuries.
Micah 5:08PM (10/15/2008)
In college my senior design project iwas done on School Buses. Seat belts won't significantly improve the safety of the kids, it just won't. School buses are built so safely that they don't *require* seat belts to be safe vehicles like little Honda Civics do.
Most crashes happen below the passengers feet and the padded seats do an excellent job of 'compartmentalizing' the kiddos, even during a major-ish crash.
This money could be used on a better safety initiative that would save more lives.
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tankd0g 5:52PM (10/15/2008)
Ya, stuff like this just does not happen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdKofJlNOQM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Anq5ZePcWM8&feature=related
Egon 5:09PM (10/15/2008)
I find it odd to be on the 'no seat belt' side of the argument since I've caught myself buckling up while moving the car out of the driveway, but in this situation, this appears to be a very inefficient reaction to a problem that is microscopic at best.
For decades, school busses have been constructed with a 'shelter in place' approach. High seat backs to control fore-aft motion. Reinforced crash bars to stiffen the body in side collisions (the multiple black bars on each side...those aren't decorations). Even the arched roof is designed to absorb and disperse energy in the event of a rollover.
The statistical results as mentioned in the main article speak for themselves. What could be safer than walking? Apparently riding a school bus is. I would have never guessed that the risk of my child dying would increase 87-fold simply by letting them use their own 2 feet. How about we try to ban walking to school instead?
And then, as Travis mentioned, there's the enormous issue of compliance. I would take a swag and say that 50% compliance (kids actually wearing the belts) would be a herculean task.
The stock sound bite/augument often seems to be "how much would you spend to save one child's life?". It looks as though we're about to find out. And I doubt the effort will have any significant influence on the year-to-year stats.
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Benfolio 5:12PM (10/15/2008)
I always thought something was wrong not having belts on busses (except the smaller van nosed ones) back when I was in school (late 80's-early 90's). But at the relative low speed most busses travel at, and their weight, dictate that they are still safe to travel in.
I had been in two bus accidents in all my years of school, and both were low speed impacts that as a rider, I barely felt. Once was the front wheel of our bus driving over the hood of car that had pulled into traffic in front of us, the other was a car that ran a red light, careened off of one bus and then ended up under ours.
But with my youngest about to head off to school in the next year, you can bet if she's not riding a small bus with her belt on, Mommy or Daddy are driving her to school.
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Smegley 5:16PM (10/15/2008)
Most of the kids aren't going to use the belts anyway. This is just to appease some whiny special interest.
Then again, appeasing whiny special interests is all government is about, but the best part is that after they appease special interests and ignore normal people the politicians come out and ask "why are the voters so cynical?"
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stecki 5:28PM (10/15/2008)
everyone will say it's a waste of money, until it is their own kid that get killed. then the money should have been spent.
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Brn 10:02AM (10/16/2008)
Yes, that's exactly what people will do. However, that doesn't make it right. All costs have to be justified. There are much better ways to spend money than on this. Money must be spent where it will do the most good. If we've done everything else and there's $100mil burning a hole in our pockets, I'm all for the seat belts. Until then, no.