Inquiring mind wants to know

[Skibo]

Tragedy

The 'concerned' legislators have passed seat belt laws forcing me to wear a seat belt when I drive, they have forced all the parents to purchase car seats for their children, they have even required that the child sit in the back seat strapped into a seat. Now I want to know why don't they require seatbelts on the vehicles that the children ride every day and are the most dangerous to a child if something happens. The driver is forced to wear a seatbelt and he is protected yet the children are completely unprotected.

[Soraya]

Tragedy

The 'concerned' legislators have passed seat belt laws forcing me to wear a seat belt when I drive, they have forced all the parents to purchase car seats for their children, they have even required that the child sit in the back seat strapped into a seat. Now I want to know why don't they require seatbelts on the vehicles that the children ride every day and are the most dangerous to a child if something happens. The driver is forced to wear a seatbelt and he is protected yet the children are completely unprotected.

There are actually differences in how a school bus is constructed inside that helps (higher seat backs, etc etc) and there are pros and cons for the seat belts in them. (There are entire school bus industry magazines that always have articles in them on this. If there was an easy answer by now, it would have been implemented by now.)

A bus running off an overpass is such a rare occurance that I am not sure if seat belts would have prevented those deathes. Seat belts don't prevent crushing.

[bravedave]

Google: schoolbus OR "school bus" seatbelt
Click "I'm Feeling Lucky"

[krusin1]

Tragedy

The 'concerned' legislators have passed seat belt laws forcing me to wear a seat belt when I drive, they have forced all the parents to purchase car seats for their children, they have even required that the child sit in the back seat strapped into a seat. Now I want to know why don't they require seatbelts on the vehicles that the children ride every day and are the most dangerous to a child if something happens. The driver is forced to wear a seatbelt and he is protected yet the children are completely unprotected.

Here's the info (Just FYI, I'm a school administrator and have checked into this topic a LOT.)

School buses are built on the concept of "compartmentalization." Essentially, when a child sits in a bus seat, he/she is enclosed in a padded compartment consisting of the back of the seat in front of him and the seat in which he is sitting.

Lots of engineering goes into those compartments, including the padding (obviously) but also the fact that bus seats are designed to "give" and bend forward slightly in the event of a frontal impact. In fact, if you ever look at a bus that's been in such an accident, all the seats will be slanted forward.

As for seat belts.... they may give a small advantage, but also have a lot of drawbacks in this type of vehicle. Buses often carry 60+ passengers. In the event of an accident, you have to get a lot of kids out quickly (fire danger, etc.) and belts obstruct that - especially if the kids are younger or if the belt jams.

From a cost standpoint, seat belts would add about $10,000 to the cost of each bus, but would also reduce the capacity of each bus, so you would need more buses on the road to move the same number of kids. Some people would argue that each additional bus on the road is another chance for an accident.

Speaking strictly of safety, kids in a school bus are already riding in THE safest mode of ground transportation available. In fact, most of the injury accidents that involve school buses take place BEFORE the kid gets on the bus, or AFTER he gets off the bus - seat belts aren't applicable in those situations.

So... seat belts in buses? May add a (very) small measure of safety, but in the event of an accident may also indirectly result in as many injuries as they prevent.

Hope the info helps.

[Dezdmona]

I used to work for a organization where we transported youth in Vans and the kids were required to use seat belts.

This, of course, happened after a tragedy where youth from another facility were killed in a accident in a Van.

Unfortunately, seatbelts on vans and busses are (for the most part) lap belts which are as dangerous or more dangerous than wearing no belt at all. (A lap belt can cause extreme internal damage in a crash if not used in conjunction with a shoulder harness - essentially bisecting an individual.)

All seats on vans and busses should be equipped with shoulder harness seat belts.
Not only would this be an added safety precaution in case of an accident, it would assist the bus driver in keeping students seated during transport.

[krusin1]

I used to work for a organization where we transported youth in Vans and the kids were required to use seat belts.

This, of course, happened after a tragedy where youth from another facility were killed in a accident in a Van.

Unfortunately, seatbelts on vans and busses are (for the most part) lap belts which are as dangerous or more dangerous than wearing no belt at all. (A lap belt can cause extreme internal damage in a crash if not used in conjunction with a shoulder harness - essentially bisecting an individual.)

All seats on vans and busses should be equipped with shoulder harness seat belts.
Not only would this be an added safety precaution in case of an accident, it would assist the bus driver in keeping students seated during transport.

Actually, schools in our state are prohibited from using passenger vans to transport kids. Structurally, they are not considered strong enough to provide the measure of safety desired - even with shoulder harness belts.

School buses ARE built to that level of safety. Just FYI.

[Dezdmona]

I can only offer observations from the perspective of a child care administrator

...but as you and parents are aware, day care and other child care organizations DO use Vans to transport children and youth, so Van safety is worthy of consideration when children are involved in accidents while being transported by care providers.

[krusin1]

I can only offer observations from the perspective of a child care administrator

...but as you and parents are aware, day care and other child care organizations DO use Vans to transport children and youth, so Van safety is worthy of consideration when children are involved in accidents while being transported by care providers.

Agreed.

[longlinergirl]

My son has seatbelts on his bus...

[OceanCityGirl]

as was said, the logistics of getting 60 injured kids out quickly when you also have to deal with seatbelts is it. Other then this particular type of accident you rarely hear of fatalities in bus accidents.

[flyboy55]

Short answer - money.

Properly built vehicles with safety restraint systems are the best way to travel on the nation's roads.

The fact that school buses don't have seatbelts in the end always comes down to money. The bus companies don't have the money, the school districts don't have the money, the tax payers don't have the money . . .

Look at the history of seatbelt law implementation (auto makers were forced to make seatbelts standard equipment by government regulation) in various jurisdictions. Seatbelt laws never came into effect without a struggle and EXEMPTIONS were always given to industry sectors (taxis) or organizations (school boards) who could lobby against seatbelts because of inconvenience, cost or other impediments to business.

When a vehicle, such as a large bus, leaves the road and rolls in the ditch, the fatalities usually result from people (including kids) being ejected from the vehicle and sustaining blunt force trauma injuries or simply getting crushed.

In my own industry, almost every single safety innovation has come about because of a specific, horrendous accident which focused attention on the issue. This resulted in government regulation, forced on the aviation industry, which usually complained that the improvments in question would be impractical or cost too much money.

Safety costs money. We may not want to pay the costs, but we shouldn't claim that safety improvements are unnecessary for other reasons.

IMHO.

[Skibo]

I knew there was something we could agree on flyboy.