NATIONAL COALITION OF SCHOOL BUS SAFETY NEWS 2007

Students Need Bus Safety Now, Not After Another Accident
March 4, 2007

It is disappointing that the best a state blue-ribbon study commission on seat belts in school buses could do last week was to recommend another study.

Gov. Bob Riley appointed the group after a school-bus accident in Huntsville last November that claimed the lives of four Lee High School students.

The panel’s mission was to hear from opponents and supporters of seat belts in school buses and make a recommendation to the governor.

Riley got a recommendation, but it probably wasn’t what he expected. The group recommended that the state fund a $1.4 million pilot study to determine if seat belts on buses make children safer.

The study will take three years to complete, a political eternity. In the interim, school children will continue to ride the buses as they always have -- without the protection of seat belts.

Riley seemed to favor seat belts from the start. But it also was apparent early on that the proposal would face some stiff opposition.

It came from everywhere. Bus drivers testified that it would be a nightmare to try to get all the students to buckle up.

A transportation researcher said a study found that a new bus equipped with a three-point restraint system, including lap belts and shoulder harnesses, costs about $10,000 more than one with only heavily padded, high seat backs -- the standard protection system used now.

While carefully noting that money is not a consideration, others suggested it would cost a fortune -- $85 million, according to one estimate -- to retrofit Alabama’s aging fleet of some 8,500 school buses with belts.

Some opponents argued, too, that seat belts increase the risk of serious injury in side-impact crashes.

Proponents also argued their cases, some convincingly. But as the hearings went on, it became more and more obvious that the blue-ribbon panel was not going to recommend an immediate changeover to school bus seat belts.

It did recommend that Riley pressure federal officials to quickly implement recommendations of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on seat belts in school buses. The agency submitted a report to Congress in 2002 but its recommendations aren’t expected to be implemented before 2013.

But why bother? The NHTSA position statement concludes “there is insufficient reason for a Federal mandate for seat belts on large school buses."

Instead, the agency feels that the best way to provide crash protection to passengers is through “compartmentalization," in which “a protective envelope consisting of strong, closely-spaced seats that have energy-absorbing seat backs" is installed in buses.

So much for seat belts. The Legislature may fund the pilot study -- nobody wants to appear to be against safety -- but if we had to bet, we’d say it will wind up in the black hole in Montgomery where most long-term studies come to rest. And we won’t hear much more about school bus seat belts until the next fatal accident.

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