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NATIONAL COALITION OF SCHOOL BUS SAFETY NEWS 2007
Seat Belts on School Buses,
Because Early Habits Save Lives
November 25, 2007
I am using this holiday column to thank Transportation Secretary
Mary Peters for a singular act of common sense. Under her guidance,
using the research of the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, her department has come up with a proposal to
install three-point seat belts -- lap belts and shoulder harnesses
-- in school buses nationwide.
Made public by Peters last week in an address to the students and
faculty of Morrisville Elementary School in North Carolina, the
proposal would allow school districts to use federal highway safety
funds to put belts in buses, which is exactly where they should have
been since the 1960s, when seat belts began appearing in cars.
Frankly, I never could understand our nation's glaring double
standard on this issue.
We require that adults wear seat belts in cars and trucks. We demand
that they properly restrain infants and toddlers in child safety
seats. In many places around the country, failure to buckle up when
driving a vehicle or riding as a passenger counts as a primary
traffic offense. Failing to properly restrain a baby or child in a
moving vehicle can result in a big traffic ticket and possibly yield
other legal charges.
Police departments nationwide annually run "Click It or Ticket"
campaigns, usually around holidays such as Memorial Day or the
Fourth of July. Their aim is simple. They want to save lives. They
know that an unrestrained body in motion continues moving when the
vehicle it is in abruptly stops. They know that when that happens,
the moving body crashes into things inside of the vehicle or is
thrown out of it, often with deadly results.
Consider the recent spate of teenage crash deaths in the Washington
area in the past month -- 10 teenagers killed, 10 promising lives
cut short, largely because most of them were unbelted when their
vehicles crashed.
Yet, for decades in this country, we have persisted with the
foolishness that unbelted schoolchildren are safe on buses because
buses are big. Perhaps that is why so many unbelted teenage drivers
erroneously believe they are safe in big sedans and sport-utility
vehicles -- until they crash, and they, their families and bereaved
communities find out otherwise.
They are the victims of a mixed-up educational message. When we
march them to the big, belt-free, yellow school bus, we are telling
them through example that seat belts are unnecessary. Then, when
they are 16 years old and hankering for a driver's license, we scold
them about buckling up. Are we surprised that they don't take us
seriously on the belt thing? We've told them contradictory things.
Rare is the teenager who can deal with that kind of misguidance.
So I thank Secretary Peters and her NHTSA associates for clarifying
matters. Seat belts are necessary for everybody in all moving
vehicles. That includes cars, trucks and buses. (In fact, in many
European countries -- France comes to mind -- tourists are required
to buckle up on tourist buses. That being the case, why should
schoolchildren in the United States be exempt?) Peters's proposal
will cost lots of money. In California, for example, where the
installation of three-point seat belts on school buses is required,
the state is spending an estimated $1,800 per bus to properly buckle
in children.
The Department of Transportation's proposal could prove even more
expensive because it also requires that school buses be fitted with
higher seat backs to better protect children during accidents in
which adults or older children who fail to buckle up are thrown from
their seats.
As often happens when things cost money, there are many people who
will oppose spending it. In this case, they will come up with tired
excuses as to why school bus seat belts are unnecessary, possibly
even harmful. They will cite the danger of unruly children using the
belt buckles to injure one another. They will cite costly vandalism
-- gummed-up belt connections, that sort of thing. They will point
out the overall low incidence of school-bus crashes and fatalities,
while conveniently ignoring the few tragic incidents in which belts
on buses might have saved lives.
Finally, opponents will work in their cost-benefits analyses. There
are an estimated 474,000 school buses nationwide, many of them
running in cash-strapped communities that could use the government's
proposed seat-belt installation money for other needs.
These are the kinds of things we should expect to hear during the
coming debate -- the formal 60-day comment period -- on the school
bus belt proposals put forth by Peters and the department.
We should be ready to answer, and to ask, some questions of our own:
- How many children need to die or
be seriously injured in school bus crashes before we determine
that it's worth it to improve school bus safety by installing
three-point belts as standard equipment?
- What kind of children must die
or be critically injured before we decide to routinely put belts
on buses?
- Whose children must they be to
matter?
- What are the hidden costs of our
contradictory approach to safety belt education -- demanding
that belts be used in passenger cars while excusing their
installation in school buses where children can learn to use
them at an early age?
- How many of those unbuckled
teenagers who died recently in Washington-area vehicle crashes
might be alive today if they had learned to buckle up at an
early age -- on school buses equipped with three-point seat
belts?
By Warren Brown
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