NATIONAL COALITION OF SCHOOL BUS SAFETY NEWS 2007

Little Consistency in School Bus Safety Standards
March 18, 2007

Students who ride school buses in New Jersey, like these children in Cherry Hill, must wear seat belts.

DR. ALAN ROSS did not develop a passion for school bus safety until 10 years ago, when his son asked why there were no safety belts on the bus he rode to school in Litchfield County, Conn.

“I was your typical parent, and I just assumed we had this covered in a school bus,” said Dr. Ross, who is now the president of the National Coalition for School Bus Safety, a volunteer group. “That started my quest to improve things. The state of school bus transportation is a very sad one.”

School buses remain the safest form of transportation to and from school, according to various federal statistics, but regulation of the buses is uneven. No federal laws govern whether safety belts are required on school buses, how often the buses must be inspected or how many years they can be on the road. On a state level, there are significant differences in such laws — New York and New Jersey require seat belts on buses, for example, but Connecticut does not. Districts can have their own rules, too.

But whenever there are accidents involving a bus, like the one in Bucks County, Pa., in January in which 17 students were injured, parents and educators alike take another look at bus safety.

In that accident, a 13-year-old bus carrying several students suddenly accelerated, hitting students waiting to board other buses. The driver eventually ran the bus into a wall to get it to stop. The police said Tuesday that the operator, driving an unfamiliar bus, mistakenly pressed the accelerator; he was not charged.

“It takes those types of tragedies for people to pay attention to these issues,” Dr. Ross said.

Nationally, about 25 million children ride school buses to and from school, and a study released in November showed that bus-related accidents account for about 17,000 injuries a year — more than most previous studies, which used data from different sources. There are about 20 deaths a year involving drivers and students on school buses or in loading zones, the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies of Sciences said.

“No one had ever taken a look at the entire spectrum of injuries before,” said the senior author of the study, Dr. Gary A. Smith, the director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

The study looked at emergency room visits for school-bus-related injuries from 2001 through 2003. It found a total of 51,000 injuries, 3 percent serious enough to require admission to the hospital. (The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, using information from a sampling of school districts, has estimated 8,500 to 12,000 injuries a year.)

Most injuries occurred in September and October and involved children 10 to 14 years old. About 42 percent of the injuries involved another motor vehicle coming in contact with the bus, Dr. Smith said. More than half the injuries to children younger than 10 were to the head; lower-extremity injuries were the highest in children 10 to 19.

Dr. Smith said he agreed with the position of the American Academy of Pediatrics that children should have restraints on buses. But there is no consensus in the law.

In New Jersey, where more than 800,000 students ride buses to and from school, there was “a 20-year debate” over seat belts, said Richard Vespucci, a State Department of Education spokesman. In 1992, Gov. Jim Florio signed legislation requiring all new buses to have safety belts and all children to wear them, said Bill Reed, supervising administrator for school bus enforcement under the Motor Vehicle Commission.

New Jersey also has a law limiting the age of buses: For the last 30 years, state law has said that buses cannot be more than 12 years old.

But some districts have stricter requirements. In Cherry Hill, where about 8,500 of the 11,800 students ride buses, no bus may be older than seven years, said Susan Bastnagel, spokeswoman for the district.

More than 22,000 school buses are on the road in New Jersey — about 40 percent owned by districts, and the others contracted with private companies. All must be inspected every six months, Mr. Reed said.

“Many of the buses on the road are not used as long as they would be permitted to be used,” said Dot Shelmet, of the State Office of Pupil Transportation. “New Jersey has such strict regulations that we have specialty teams that do all the school bus inspections.” Inspection records are available online for review.

In New York, school buses must be inspected every six months. While there is no age limit on buses, they can be taken out of service if they do not pass inspection.

“It’s a very thorough inspection,” said William Fahey, executive director of the New York School Bus Contractors Association. “They will take buses off the road.”

More than two million students ride school buses to and from school in New York. All buses manufactured after July 1, 1987, must have seat belts; districts are responsible for giving instructions on their use.

In Connecticut, where more than 330,000 students ride buses to and from school, buses must be inspected once a year. About 92 percent of Connecticut’s buses are owned by private companies, said Robin Leeds, industry specialist for the National School Transportation Association, which represents bus companies. School districts can make their own requirements for the companies, she said.

Ms. Leeds’s group gives “a qualified yes” to mandatory seat belts, she said. If they are lap and shoulder belts, she said, they can make a difference, but only California requires those.

“And belts don’t do any good unless they are worn properly,” Ms. Leeds said.

Whether students are in belts or not, they are still statistically safer than being in cars, she said. About 800 students a year are killed going to or from school while walking or using transportation other than a school bus.

But the debate continues about ways buses could be made safer. Five states require seat belts on buses, said Dr. Ross of the bus-safety coalition, but 27 state legislatures have bills pending that would require some type of restraint.

“We are finally getting the word out,” he said.

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