NATIONAL COALITION OF SCHOOL BUS SAFETY NEWS 2007

Report on July 11 NHTSA meeting on Three Point Seat Belts on School Buses

Based on the agenda and not unexpectedly, the meeting was stacked against those with our favorable position and heavily weighted toward the government and industry's negativism. I was third from last speaker and Dr. Agran was very last. Steve Forman and his wife were allowed to present during the public session that followed.

Brief introductory remarks containing the usual platitudes re intense devotion to child safety and praising the ‘exemplary’ safety of school buses were made by the US Sect. of Transportation, Mary Peters and by NHTSA Administrator Nicole Nason.

The only real consequence was the fact that Administrator Nason remained to Chair the meeting and was there to listen when ‘our side’ made its presentations.

First came NHTS’s presentation with the usual half truths like ‘compartmentalization works well in severe frontal crashes’ neglecting to mention that it utterly fails in side impacts and rollovers and gee whiz figures like only six are killed inside school buses while 42,000 are killed in other automotive crashes, failing to point out that the 42,000 include 12,000 pedestrians (their school bus numbers do not), that the 42,000 occur over 365 days while school buses are on the road only half the time averaging 180 days, that fatalities are greater in July and August, over weekends and nighttime hours when school buses do not operate.

When I accepted the position on the panel I thought I would need to counter the same arguments from 30 years ago when the school bus standards were being developed. I was shocked to hear the arguments from 40 years ago when consideration of seat belts in cars was under being contemplated. A representative from Canada actually started her presentation with a slide of a man who had the shape of a sumo wrestler next to a child and asked how can you have seat belts that fit both?

Answer, we have done OK and saved lives for decades. Most reiterated that kids were safer without belts. One repeated the old, never proven saw that kids would use as weapons, vandalize, hook them across aisles, etc.

A recurring theme was loss of seating capacity because the current 39” seats, purportedly accommodating 3 children each, 6 across each row would have to be reduced to 3-2 seating with only 5 across. As a result costs would skyrocket because more buses would be needed, more divers needed, more maintenance costing untold millions or have busing cut.

Worst was the Thomas bus representative who used as example elementary school kids buses carefully neglecting to mention that kids from the 4th grade on don’t fit on a 39” seat. (Dr. Agran later pointed out that this was based on 20 year old data and children are much larger today) His estimate was in the 40% seat loss range. Actually, later on, those with actual experience with the 3 point belts reported an actual increase in seating capacity for middle school and high school children because they are currently assigned 2 to a seat, 4 across and now the buses can accommodate 5 across a 25% increase in capacity, fewer buses and less cost!

I had anticipated these arguments and did my best to refute them. Dr. Agran was excellent in presenting the Academy of Pediatrics favorable position as were Mr. And Mrs. Forman in their description of the experiences as the result of a crash of their daughter’s bus and subsequent efforts to get belts on Texas buses.

Perhaps the best thing I can say is that Administrator Nason was there to hear our presentations. With such a large agency to run, with so many areas of responsibility, I am sure she hears little of NHTS’s inadequacy regarding school buses and is comforted by her staff when it comes to issues that we are concerned with. Whether it results in any action is always a question, but now it cannot be said that she has heard ‘the other side’.

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