NATIONAL COALITION OF SCHOOL BUS SAFETY NEWS 2007

A Click Away, Seatbelts Will Save Kids' Lives
April 14, 2007

It's a monstrous stupidity. I call it criminal negligence on wheels.

School boards are asleep and they must wake up - or be forced to wake up - to a simple fact that all responsible adults know:

"Seatbelts save lives!"

An innocent, 10-year-old boy, John Pham, of Mississauga, died Wednesday. His head smashed into steel and was crushed. Why? John was not provided with a seat belt. "Click."

The lad's school bus crashed on the high-speed Highway 410 in Brampton. Rocketing like little missiles throughout the bus, tumbling, spinning, end-over-end, 14 other children, John's little friends, smashed into glass and steel and into each other, with tremendous and terrible force.

It was a horrific scene. And it was a bloody, stupid, senseless and easily avoidable tragedy.

These innocent young children, who became small projectiles of human flesh, were foolishly endangered - as they are each and every single school day of their lives - because school boards continue to deprive their charges of a basic lifesaver, a seatbelt, the single most important piece of highway safety equipment ever invented.

One "click" and John Pham would be alive today.

Sounds simple, doesn't it? "Click," a child lives. No "click," a child dies.

Maybe it's not that simple. After all, we are dealing with slow moving school boards, paper bound administrators, know-it-all education consultants, powerless teachers and desk-thumping politicians who all preach "safety, safety, safety" for school children. Why then, do all of these lessons end when the little kids file onto those big yellow and seatbelt-less school buses? "Click." Most disturbing of all, in my view, is the fact that many school and bus company officials will state that school buses are actually safe - even without seatbelts. Hello? Hello?

Then there's those goofy "experts" who actually cite statistics, studies, plans, safety reports that claim seat belts are all quite unnecessary on school buses. They say the tiny tykes are "contained" by the long seats, and they all must remain seated in any event, and that school buses rarely roll over, or even get in an accident. I have actually heard them say this on national public radio. It's unbelievable. And it's wrong.

In most countries in the world, in cars, trucks and airplanes, (never buses for some perverse reason), it's the law that seat belt be used. As we all know, most people who die or are injured in crashes were not wearing seat belts. "Click."

Why then do all parents stand mute, helpless, as our school officials - those usually bright and caring people charged daily with the safety of the most trusting, vulnerable little people in the world - plunk 20 or 30 or even 70 helpless, unrestrained children into a great big, hulking steel school bus, and then set these cumbersome machines loose, at 80 k.p.h., or faster, into the madness of our hectic super highways? In my view, the failure to equip school buses with seat belts is a perilous act of omission.

Can someone please explain to me, calmly, slowly, expertly, why seatbelts are not used in school buses? Do they cost too much? Is it because school buses are deemed so safe and our dedicated drivers so expert and careful, that it's really a needless expense? Is it because the buses are so big, so sturdily built, and have so many lights and warning devices, bells and whistles, that the "safe and sound" delivery of their precious cargo, tiny children, is usually guaranteed? But "usually" just doesn't seem good enough - as Wednesday's tragedy shows.

Are school boards playing a numbers game? After all, the incidents of kids who die or are maimed, in school bus crashes are, according to some deep thinkers in our sleepy education bureaucracies, so 'statistically low' that, well, perhaps we should all just play the odds, the numbers. By the way, John Pham is now "a number" - another child killed because he was not provided with a seat belt.

Where in all of this deadly craziness are our parent associations and our senior police officers? Why aren't they demanding installation of seat belts in every single vehicle that carries a child? If I were a school bus driver, I would just park it. Get me a seat belt, I would say, and one for every child in my charge, or we ain't heading out on the highway.

As you motor about, strapped snugly and safely inside your car or truck, do you ever wonder about all those tiny little kids, bouncing about, faces pressed to glass while they kneel or stand on their bench seats? Why are those children, who are roaring by you at 100 k.p.h., not entitled to a simple seat belt?

I predict, any day now, in some court in Canada, some grieving parents will launch a class action lawsuit against a school board or bus company for not providing the proper care and protection. And maybe some court action will get school boards and politicians across our land to wake up to a simple fact of life and death.

Seatbelts save lives.

Mike Tenszen

back to News

top