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TESTIMONIESTestimony - Carol Fast (1987)Click here to download this document (PDF) TESTIMONY BEFORE THE OHIO SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE March 17, 1987 By Carol Fast, Technical Advisor, New York State Senate Transportation Committee, 11 Orlando Ave., Ardsley, New York 10502, (914)693-5763 On Senate Bill 19 Good evening Chairman Snyder and Members of the Senate Education Committee. My name is Carol Fast and I am here representing Senator Norman Levy, the Chairman of the NY State Senate Transportation Committee and father of both the first mandatory usage bill for cars in this country and the first bill in the country for the installation of seat belts on all newly manufactured school buses. I am a technical advisor to Senator Levy and to the Senate Transportation Committee and also work closely with the NY joint Legislative Commission on Critical Transportation Choices (LCCTC). I am hoping that the information that I will be sharing with you tonight on our NY experience will help you in your decision as to whether you should pass Senator Fisher's bill SB.19 out of Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to address you. I must also mention that I have worked through various organizations nationwide for 14 years in the field of school bus safety. I have spent many years as a member of the NY State Dept. of Transportation's Advisory Committee on School Bus Body Construction Standards. On the federal level, in my position as Nat'l School Bus Safety Chairman for a group called Action For Child Transportation Safety, I helped work for the inception of the first set of federal construction standards for school buses, effective April,'77. In the 1970's, I lobbied f or a bill calling for 281, high backed seats in NY, which passed and became effective for all buses manufactured for use in NY after December 31, 1975. In 1977 we passed a regulation through the Dept. of Transportation that called for emergency escape roof hatches and extra side emergency doors. Our construction standards have been the highest in the country. Illinois recently passed legislation for 281, seats on their new buses. Improving school bus construction standards has been thwarted by the pupil transportation industry every step of the way and I will go more deeply into this later in my testimony, but the point I do want to stress right up front is that the standards that have been passed are now used by the transportation industry as standards that they worked for and that they achieved. These Federal standards are now touted as being so safe that we don't need seat belts added. People don't believe me when I describe what it was like in 1972. I was thought of as being on the lunatic fringe because I was fighting hard for padding on the seat tops and backs and for higher backed seats. The transportation officials and the contractors, along with school boards, all said these features were not needed and could cause serious maintenance problems. They claimed that we were simply emotional parents. What they were not saying in public was that it was the cost that bothered them. That would have sounded coldhearted. After all, we were discussing children's faces and heads. I remember asking for at least minimal, cosmetic padding for the iron bars on the tops of the seats and being criticized because I was not even a bus driver. How could I presume to know what was needed in a school bus. A nucleus of us was fighting what seemed to be a losing battle. Large numbers of parents were not involved because the issue was too technical and they were simply not aware at the time that school buses were dangerous and that drivers needed better training and more stringent licensing. This has all changed. The movement for seat belts on buses is coming from the parents. In December of 1983 I had given testimony before Senator Levy and the Legislative Commission on Critical Transportation Choices. I have enclosed that testimony with other materials, that I’d like you to read. By the end of December '83 parents had started to call me from very different parts of the country: PA, AK, GA, CA, TN, etc. . By January, 84, I had received calls from every region of the country. Parents and doctors had somehow heard of my work on improving school transportation and they now wanted help in getting seat belts on school buses. They could identify with seat belts, for it was a law to restrain your young child in most states at that time when travelling in a car. The number of calls per day increased rapidly until, in the end of January a group of parents in IL asked me to coordinate the efforts of all these people. It had been quickly discovered that the industry was too powerful to fight alone in a school district. The state associations of pupil transportation-all part of the National Association of Pupil Transportation(NAPT)-and the state associations of contractors and of school boards, with help from their national associations, helped local school boards defend a "no" vote. A national organization that would stick to the one issue of seat belts on large Type I school buses was desperately needed. I agreed to found one and called it the National Coalition for Seatbelts on School Buses (NCSSB). At long last parents from every state were looking critically at school buses. They all learned that you should never put belts on buses built before the 1977 Federal Standards and therefore had to try to understand the Federal Standards. This led to the needed movement in this country to retire pre-Federal buses, something I had wanted for over seven years. The medical profession found me also, since I had worked hand-in-hand with Physicians for Automotive Safety, or PAS, since 1972. Together the parents and the doctors made headway. We had 1 district with belts on their large buses in 1979-Greenburgh Central 7 School District, Hartsdale NY-joined by the Ardsley, NY and the Hartland, VT school districts in 1983. We have about doubled every year since, until now we have 150 districts operating some or all of their large school buses with seat belts. The NCSSB has reached Canada (Nova Scotia Coalition for Seat Belts on School Buses) and even Japan.(List of districts enc.) I would like to read into my testimony a typical letter received by the members of our coalition. Most members are the leaders in their area: Dear Mrs. Phyllis Scheps: I was given your name as someone who has been fighting for seat belts on school buses. Recently, my six year old daughter was riding her school bus (it was the day of her sixth birthday), the driver stopped short and my daughter fell out of her seat and lost her two front teeth. A few days later, the bus stopped short again causing her to fall out of her seat and this time she sustained a bump on her forehead. I feel if she were in a bus with seat belts, these two incidences would never have happened. I urge you, Mrs. Scheps, to do everything in your power to help fight for belts on buses. We are required by law to buckle up in our cars to avoid such accidents, how do we explain to our children they have to buckle up in cars but not on buses; what’s the difference. We have to teach consistency to our children for their safety. If there is anything that I can do to help you in your fight, please let me know. Sincerely, Mrs. Dawn C. Phillips These kinds of injuries never appear in the injury statistics. It depends on what you call statistics. These parents all came with the same concerns: their child had been brought up under the state's child restraint usage law and was now going to take their first ride in a moving vehicle unrestrained. Some had kindergartners riding already. Many of these children were very frightened. Some questioned: "Where are the seat belts?"; one said, "Mommy, someone took out all the seat belts!"; another said, "Daddy, you told me that I have to wear a seat belt in our car because you love me. Doesn't the school love me?" If you are concerned about whether or not you will end up on the 'right' side of this issue you have to think of this issue in the context of the past decade and a half. What was considered lunatic fringe 14 years ago is now looked back on as the bare minimum protection we MUST provide our children-padding. It is hard to conceive of a time when this was fought against-but take it from someone who lived through the struggle to tell about it-this is how we will be looking at seat belts on school buses 14 years from now. Dr. Zanga, in his letter to Senator Snyder regarding Senate bill 19, also remembers as far back as 1970 when the American Academy of Pediatrics published a major monograph on school bus safety in which it called for a number of then unpopular improvements, notably in chassis design, seat design and anchorage, and extensive padding of all exposed hard surfaces. The final item needed to complete the package was also recommended-seat belts on the buses for each child. Dr. Zanga recalls the exact same feelings I've just described during the 70's. He goes on to say, "How interesting it is, then , that you hear these same arguments today, except that now the manufacturers point to (with pride) the changes in their school buses they fought against such a short time ago as the major elements in making school buses as safe as they currently are. I certainly hope that your committee will give them still more reason to be proud, ten years hence, when they can point to their school buses as truly safe vehicles because of the things they did in the 70's, and because in the 80's they raised the seat back heights to 28 inches and installed safety belts for all children." I am sure Dr. Zanga would agree that this movement parallels the history of occupant restraint in the automobile. If you, the legislators, make the courageous decision to say "yes" to Senate Bill 19 you will be in fine company. The following is a list of endorsers of seat belts on school buses on a national level: American Medical Association These organizations are joined by the top biomechanical engineers in this country. The authors of the original early studies have joined forces with the "masses" and have said in newspaper and TV interviews that even though major changes have occurred in school bus construction since 1977, the Federal Standards are remiss-we need 28" seats and lap belts to complete the compartmentalization theory. To quote Bill Paul, editor of 'School Bus Fleet’ magazine,1987 Feb.-March issue: "Public opinion in this country is everything. He was quoting Abraham Lincoln. The public wants belts on buses. You must never forget that the number one killer of children and young adults today is the automobile accident. In 1984 only 11% of the American riding public wore their seat belts. The U.S. DEPT. of Transportation figures for 1986 for children are: Child restraint usage – 52% for 0-5 years old. This drops to 20% for 5 years and up. Obviously, it has been very difficult to convince children to wear their belts. The school years, or formative years, represent the best time to be educating them, but they have not had a chance to 'practice' wearing belts. The school bus affords us the best place to do-this, the best place to develop a habit. What a great opportunity you have before you to help a whole new generation of children to think of buckling up in the same way they think of brushing their teeth. The parents of children raised under the Child restraint use laws now in effect in all states are concerned that having no belts on buses will be a NEGATIVE form of education for their children. These parents are concerned for all the innocent children whose parents have NOT taught them to buckle up and who COULD be taught a lifesaving habit in their school bus. These parents are also greatly concerned about the fact that children have no protection during a lateral, (or side) collision, or during an everyday occurrence like a swerve or sharp turn. Also, 14% of all school buses involved in moderate accidents roll over because of their high center of gravity. Rollovers and side collisions present the greatest risks to children without seat belts. Ardsley and Greenburgh NY school districts have both had an accident where all students were wearing their belts. None were injured. To quote the students on the Ardsley bus, "Thank God we were wearing our seat belts. The driver was interviewed and she said, "If not for the seat belts, the children on the right side of the bus would have wound up on the left side of the bus. Some of these children and the bus driver can be seen in a film entitled "If... " which I have with me today, made by Seven Oakes Productions, the same company who produced ‘Death Zones’-a film Ohio mandates for all school children to see. I would like to contrast the above newspaper quotes to what the coroner in Putnam County, NY said after an 11 year old boy was killed on Oct. 11, 1985 in Mahopac, NY: He said if the boy had been wearing a seat belt he would not have died. When his bus went over a rock, Paul Goodrow was thrown up in the air and landed on his stomach on the top of the fully padded, compartmentalized seat in front of him. The blow to his liver caused him to bleed to death within 20 minutes. He died in the ambulance. This needless death had a profound impact on the legislature in NY. This, coupled with the report that was released in April of '86 by the NY Legislative Commission on Critical Transportation Choices regarding seat belts on school buses, especially in relation to the Canadian Crash Tests of 1984, gave our legislators the courage I referred to earlier to be the first state to mandate belts on all new buses.(I have enclosed this report for you). Another important document to be released just before the passage of our bill was the Nat'l Highway Traffic Safety Administration's study on 9 districts that had installed belts in their large buses. Their findings on the reduction of misconduct where belts were installed on buses was astounding. Driver distraction was greatly reduced. I will say more about this study when I review all studies for you, but this discovery was vital to school bus safety as a whole. (See enc.) After all, human error caused by driver distraction enters into most school bus accidents and into the scenario where a driver runs over a student outside of the bus. Thirty out of fifty school bus related deaths in the year 1985 took place this way. To quote an article that appeared in the March '87 'School Bus Fleet' magazine, the industry magazine: "It only takes a few seconds of distraction to cause a catastrophy and the possible injury or death of students. This is why the discipline of the kids on board the vehicle is an important issue facing school bus drivers. Drivers face a number of challenges: the hectic traffic, the adverse weather conditions, and the time schedule of the route to name a few. They know that a single lapse in their concentration could have dire results. They also know that they play an important role in delivering children to school in the right frame of mind for learning. The article ends by saying, "The driver's job is too important to risk a loss of concentration from traffic due to a disturbance by the passengers. No where in this three page article does it even mention the findings of the NHTSA on driver distraction. I ask you WHY, if pupil transportation officials are truly searching for methods of reducing distraction. For the first time we have proof that something concrete -seat belts- could help the driver concentrate on the outside of the bus. The American Academy of Pediatrics had testified before the LCCTC in Albany, NY in December 1985. They stressed that the educational value of developing a habit of belt wearing cannot be underestimated for its life saving effect on society. Doctors wrote to legislators. We in NY are privileged to claim as our own Dr. John States, Chairman of Orthopedics at the University of Rochester, NY, and one of the people in this country who we all have to thank for our seat belts in our cars. As a typical letter from a doctor, I would like to quote Dr. States in a recent letter he wrote to 'Parents' magazine after they published an article that quoted inaccurate information on the subject of seat belts on school buses: "My statements are based on a lifetime experience as a practicing orthopaedic surgeon, a researcher in motor vehicle accidents and a designer of safety belt systems. My own research and my knowledge of the traffic safety and biomechanics literature reveals that safety belts in school buses will provide additional crash protection, particularly in side impact and rollover accidents....". The most compelling argument for providing safety belts in school buses and requiring their use is overlooked by Dr. Roberts [Ed.D] and in the above discussion. Children entering school have been required to use child restraints or safety belts while riding in passenger cars because of nationwide child restraint laws. School bus safety belts will reinforce the habit of safety belt use. In the child's lifetime the habit of safety belt use will almost certainly prevent a serious injury in a car crash and may even keep the child alive in an otherwise fatal accident. The educational value of school bus safety belts is the most compelling reason for their installation and use. In Ohio you are lucky. You can benefit from the findings of months of study that the Leg. Commission on Critical Transportation Choices did, from the federal study that discovered a way of preventing driver distraction, from the many medical opinions that entered into NY's decision to vote "yes" to seat belts on buses WITHOUT having to wait for a child to die. You too can make Paul Goodrow's death not go in vain. We in NY had gone 13 years, from 1972 to 1985, with only one death inside a bus - a decapitation, which by the way could also have been prevented; had the child been wearing a belt. He would not have stood up and stuck his head out of the window. As an aside here, I must tell you that the family of a six year old boy in Texas -who was killed in the same fashion - was awarded $500,000 in a settlement out of court. I have enclosed an article on this (I apologize for the bad copy) and also a legal opinion rendered by a law firm in Denver. We see suits popping up over the issue that seat belts were NOT provided. In NY we added another death to our statistics this school year-another decapitation in October 1986. Don't rest on your laurels in Ohio because you have not been unlucky enough to see deaths inside your buses in 20 years. It unfortunately could happen tomorrow and then there will be the same clammer that we saw in NY after Paul Goodrow died. Let me quote now from some of the Editorials that influenced our NY legislators: -6/2/84, Newsday-"But the Legislature has failed to require seat belts on school buses, so there's an enormous loophole in its logic and in the [auto-seat belt] law. -11/19/84, Newsday-,'This time, the Albany lawmakers have already shown a willingness to act. Next month, under the terms of a new auto safety law, it will be illegal for any child under the age of 10 to ride in a private automobile without being buckled up. It's illogical to exempt school buses from a similarly strict standard and State Senator Norman Levy, Chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, is sponsoring a law that would set a 1986 deadline for belts on new buses throughout the state. -11/20/84,Gannett Westchester Newspaper's – "Seatbelts cost money." But adding $1,000 to the $35,000 cost of a school bus is not excessive, and the total bill for a school district would be phased in. So would any subsidy financed by state taxpayers. The important thing is to get started now. Safety is almost always worth paying for, compared to the cost of patching up victims and settling lawsuits. Or as somebody once said, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Are school buses safer than passenger cars? Those padded safety seats that have been installed in many buses (they cost money, too) don't help if a bus rolls over. Nor are they any help if squirmy riders are in any position but properly seated at the time of a crash. Only belts can do that … Are drivers of school buses better than the average car driver? Possibly, but the accident might be the other guy's fault Education itself calls for seat belts in school buses. Why spend millions of dollars and huge amounts of energy urging people to buckle up if the schools themselves are allowed to ignore the lessons? They should be the first to teach safety and reinforce the training that New York parents and lawmakers have already mandated by the pioneering seat belt law." -1/30/85, Gannett Westchester Newspapers -"Twenty-seven children in a bus going to Ardsley Middle School were saved from injury Friday morning, because they were wearing seat belts .... The quick action of the bus driver avoided a head-on collision on Sprain Road and prevented a worse accident. But, as it happened, the bus was pushed into a guard rail. The seat belts saved the children from being thrown about inside the bus .... New York state has a mandatory seatbelt law for passenger cars. Why does the hesitation persist over belts for school buses? Friday's episode adds another piece of evidence that seat belts should be installed in school buses-and used," -12/9/85, Newsday-"Until the State Legislature makes school buses as safe as private cars, its position on vehicle safety will be illogical and contradictory.... A majority of legislators are still pretending to find substance by bus operators and school officials who oppose extending the state's mandatory seat-belt law to school buses... Although they claim the safety benefit is unproved, their real concern is cost. The auto companies used the same specious safety arguments against seat belts in cars, but their real concern was also financial.... So now it's up to the Albany lawmakers to stop shilly-shallying. The state needs a consistent vehicle safety law that includes mandatory seat belts on school buses. -12/11/85, New York Times-"WHY NO BELTS ON SCHOOL BUSES? Seat belts have been standard equipment in automobiles for so long that most children can't remember when cars came without them. Not so with school buses, in which many children spend more travel time than in the family car. The inconsistency demands correction... there are unnecessary bus deaths, like that of Paul Goodrow, an 11-year-old from Mahopac, NY, last month.... The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently reported that half of all school bus fatalities occur in rollover accidents and 15% in side-impact accidents. It said safety belts "might be most likely to provide additional safety" in such accidents The main argument concerns cost State legislators could serve both safety and education for adult driving by ordering school districts to insist on seat belts in all new school buses. -1/23/86, Gannett Westchester Newspapers -'DEMAND SAFETY ON SCHOOL BUSES ... Children who ride school buses every day are being taken for a ride that nobody bargained for.... As Kevin McCoy discovered in his research for the articles "Far From Safe," which concluded in yesterday's editions, the children face danger every day to an extent that astounds even government regulators The people whose children ride the buses and those who pay the bill knew nothing of poor driver training, inadequate inspection, unsafe equipment and lack of coordination among the agencies.... The alibis are easy to come by: Federal and state budgets are inadequate. Regulations are hard to enforce. Human frailty is ever present. None of that is good enough. And how in the name of conscience can the National School Transportation Association [the national contractor's association] say that school buses are "the safest transportation there is"? .... Just because most children ride to school daily without mishap does not make the buses safe -not when statistics show that a school bus accident occurred in the northern suburbs once every three days, resulting in 1,562 injuries and seven deaths in the 10 years ending in 1984.... It is frivolous to talk about high schools of excellence and Regents' action plans for improvements if the children cannot even be delivered to school safely. ... People in the suburbs, enamored of a back-to-basics philosophy for schools, should get tough on state and school district officials to deal with this fundamental failure." I have also included in the information that I am leaving with you a sample resolution passed by a county board of legislators. In NY state, a county has no jurisdiction over school districts and therefore can not mandate the installation of seat belts on school buses. All they could do was to call upon the state to take care of this. Here is one clause from the Westchester County Board of Legislators' Resolution: "WHEREAS, in light of this tragedy [Paul Goodrow] this Board wishes to reaffirm its request that the State Legislature enact with all deliberate speed a law to require installation of seat belts on all new school buses put into service in NY State..." Governor Mario Cuomo felt the bill for belts on buses was so important that he did a very unusual thing. Our legislative session was already several days into overtime, due to end within 24-48 'nonstop' hours. The Assembly had amended their version of the belts on school buses bill so that it would match the amended version in the Senate. The big problem was that a bill needs 3 days to 'ripen' in the NY Assembly and that looked more and more impossible as the decisions were made to work through the night and close session. On Tuesday night, July 1, 1986 the Governor sent a "Message of Necessity" down to the Assembly, waiving the 'ripening' rules and called for immediate passage of this monumental, pioneering piece of legislation. This they did, 112 to 34. The next night it passed in the Senate 39-20. On July 30th the Governor signed it into law, Under this new law, after July 1, 1987, all school buses made for use in NY must be equipped with seatbelts as well as additional padding on seat backs. School districts are permitted to retrofit existing school buses built after April 1, 1977, and to require children to wear the seatbelts, provided that the school district hold a public hearing prior to taking any such action. The law exempts school district officials, employees, bus operators and drivers from any liability for injuries to children not wearing seat belts. It also exempts school boards from liability if, after holding a public hearing, they decide not to require usage. The law also requires pupils to be instructed in proper seat belt use. I have enclosed a copy of the new State Education Dept's regulations that were written in compliance with the law. All parts of the law are in effect as of thirty days after the signing or August 29th. Instruction in the proper usage of seat belts is now required three times a year, as of October 1, 1986. The State Ed. Department is now developing suggested curriculum. Retrofitting has not been going on since Aug 29th because we must follow installation regulations and they are not quite finalized as of this date. They will be signed by the Commissioner of Transportation any time now. District, for the most part, have held off on their public hearings until these regs are finalized. This way they can discuss mandated usage and retrofitting in one hearing. Boards of education are not required to hold a hearing, but if they are going to make a decision on either usage or retrofitting they must do it in the forum of a public hearing. It would not be a wise decision to hold off with your bill until you see how New York's is working since the average life span of a bus is 13 years. It will not be until the year 2,000 that we see belts on all our school buses. How can we really tell how things are working until we have hundreds of buses on the roads for several years to see if a trend develops. The other two major reasons for installing belts will also take years to actually measure effects. Don't be tempted into waiting until the year 2,0001 Join us in being a pioneering state. It's going to happen anyway eventually. Here we should take a look at your Ohio accident statistics. You will note that the new Federal Standards (compartmentalization) have not changed the injury rates in Ohio:
Compartmentalization is not reducing injuries. If the 'theory were working, minor injuries should disappear; serious injuries should now be less. If minor injuries were most predominant, we'd see a big drop, so most injuries must be moderate since there is essentially no change in the injury rate since before the inception of the Federal Standards. I myself am shocked by this fact because we see it nationally also. We expected compartmentalization to work because of the reduction of exposed metal in the school bus. We need seat belts in order to keep the child in that compartment. I would like to relate the evolution of the present school bus seat construction standard and try and help you understand why the present compartmentalization theory is not what the scientists had recommended to the Nat'l Highway Traffic Safety Administration, (or the NHTSA), that portion of the Federal Dept. of Transportation charged with setting up school bus standards. This will show you why those injuries remain at the same levels and why you can take an important step in their reduction There were a total of 5 proposed standards for school bus seats, the first proposal called for 1. A high enough seat back to ensure whiplash protection for all size children and 2. It called for seatbelts. These standards were watered down until the final fifth proposal had lowered the seat back to 24" (4" shorter than what is stated in the government's own study ('School Bus Passenger Seat Testing,' 1975, DOT-HS-4-00969) to be needed to protect children 13 years old and up from whiplash.) When you are over 13 years old you sit head and shoulders above the 24" seat. The fifth proposal had also eliminated seat belts. As if this weren't bad enough, the standard even eliminated the seat belt anchorages that would have given a district the opportunity to install seat belts after they purchased a bus. The final standard went into effect on April 1, 1977, for any bus manufactured after that date. WHY WAS THE SEAT STANDARD WATERED DOWN SO? The national school bus contractors' lobby may explain in their own National School Transportation Association (or NSTA) Newsletter. This newsletter is dated February '76, and I quote: (I have enclosed a copy with my testimony)
According to their own newsletter, it was the school bus contractors' lobbying that influenced the Nat'l Highway Traffic Safety Administration to lower the seat standard. The present NSTA membership solicitation material still mentions this victory: (I have enclosed this membership page in my materials) "WHY SHOULD YOU BELONG? ... [to the national contractors, association, NSTA] ... Your business is stronger today because of NSTA's past team effort to secure for you these advantages: "Defeat of bills before Congress that were detrimental to the industry: end quote Without anchorages for future belt installation we are left with the sad fact that we can't retrofit most large school buses. This was the purpose, I guess, of eliminating the anchorages. Plus -the contractors saved about$0.50 an achorage point, or $33 per bus! As far back as 1971 safety engineers from the Trauma Research Group, University of California, San Diego, referred to the effect that the school bus transportation professionals have had on keeping seatbelts out of school buses. I would like to quote from their 1971 study called 'Bus Collision Causation And Injury Patterns’: "For many years certain public and pupil transportation officials have been presenting arguments against installation of restraint systems in buses, particularly school buses.... It can be stated quite categorically that the absence of load-distributing, energy-absorbing seats, coupled with the absence of bus passenger restraint systems, has and will continue to be directly responsible for the majority of bus injuries and fatalities." end quote In 1967 the most sophisticated study to date was completed at UCLA, entitled 'School Bus Passenger Protection.' Anthropomorphic dummies were set up in 3 school buses, which were then crashed head-on, side collision and rear end. Their conclusion was, and I quote: "These bus experiments, the many actual school bus accidents investigated by the authors, the many types of collision experiments conducted during the past 16 years by the authors and investigations by others, CLEARLY ESTABLISH THE VALUE IN passenger protection of lap belts when used with high back seats... These restraints can be added to the safety seat at very little added cost and their presence provides the continuity needed for proper training of youth concerning habitual use of restraints when riding in any vehicle." End quote. This means that for over 30 years scientists have known the dual value of seatbelts on school buses for injury protection and for proper training for habitual use of seatbelts. The name of the film that was made of this study is called 'Broken Bus. I have brought it tonight to show you. In 1992 the National Transportation Safety Board, in a news release, reported on two accidents involving small, van type buses were in collisions involving roll-overs. You must understand that so far in my talk I have only been referring to large school buses. Small buses, under 10,000 lbs., were required to have seatbelts since the inception of the standard in 1977. In the two above accidents the very young children in the buses were left upside down, hanging from their seatbelts-something that those who are against seatbelts in buses say will lead to tragedy. They all say that the children will never get out in case of fire. What they don't understand is that only 1/2 of one percent of all cars involved in an accident are involved in a fire and the same holds true for school buses. When you are restrained you remain unhurt and unstunned. You are conscious, able to ride through the accident, and able to get yourself out of the vehicle. Children can unfasten their own seatbelts. It's not a matter of speculation. To prove this I would like to quote from this Nat'l Transportation Safety Board 1982 News Release regarding these 2 roll-over accidents: "SPECIAL INVESTIGATION OF A NYC ACCIDENT... MIRRORED THE FINDINGS OF A 1979 INVESTIGATION - GRADE SCHOOL CHILDREN WHO HAD BEEN TAUGHT TO WEAR THEIR SEATBELTS ALL HAD THEM ON A.ND ESCAPED INJURY WHEN THEIR BUSES OVERTURNED." ".... NEITHER DRIVER HAD BEEN GIVEN SPECIAL TRAINING IN HOW TO CARRY OUT THEIR SCHOOL'S POLICY OF REQUIRING BELT USACE." "EACH DRIVER REPORTED THAT ONLY A FEW DAYS TO A WEEK HAD BEEN REQUIRED TO TEACH STUDENTS HOW TO FASTEN AND UNFASTEN THEIR... SEATBELTS AND FOR THEM TO BECOME ACCUSTOMED TO 'BUCKLING UP. "THE SAFETY BOARD OBSERVED THAT BOTH ACCIDENTS SUGGEST THAT THE UNQUESTIONABLE BENEFIT OF BEING PROTECTED BY A SEATBELT WHEN AN ACCIDENT OCCURS COULD BE AVAILABLE TO OUR CHILDREN IN THEIR SCHOOL BUSES JUST AS IT IS TO US IN OUR PRIVATE AUTOMOBILES." End quote. Because they were all belted in they were all able to go through a rather severe accident uninjured. The arguments against seat belts run the gambit from outright silly to serious misrepresentations of studies. These studies are difficult to obtain, and some are very difficult to read. For example, one particular Federal DOT study, the 1978 'School Bus Passenger Seat and Lap Belt Sled Tests,' is 152 pages long, all hand-printed - not even typed - and poorly reproduced. I am certain that at least 99% of the pupil transportation establishment in this country has never seen it. They have been given a summary of its conclusions written by somebody else in the industry and simply quote this summary. I have a copy of all the government studies done to date with me and will be glad to point out the conclusions to any of you who would care to see for yourselves. Physicians For Automotive Safety (PAS) is a national organization that has been in favor of seat belts on school buses since they began in the mid-sixties. As I stated before, anti-seat belt arguments can be very silly. For instance - 'seat belts will be used as weapons.’ PAS has always pointed out that clarinets and lunch boxes would make much more effective weapons, - but --- they admitted---this was pure speculation at the time. Now the tables have turned. Those who say they'll be used as weapons are the SPECULATORS. WE have the experience. NHTSA, in their 1986 study, confirmed this. Seat belt weaponry simply is not a problem. Besides, how much damage can be inflicted by a small lightweight buckle? It's funny, but this argument that belts will be used as weapons never came up when they were to be required in the small buses. Another argument against seat belts in large school buses that was NEVER voiced when seat belts went into vans in 1977 is that your insurance company may refuse to insure you. This argument is nonsense. I would like to quote from a letter written by the NY School Bus Contractors Association to the NY DOT, November 4, 1986: "This is a follow-up to the October 17 meeting regarding the implementation of the seat belt law. As you will recall, you requested that the Association solicit the input of the insurance industry with respect to the new law's impact upon both the cost and availability of insurance for school bus operators. "An inquiry was made through a representative of the insurance industry to the Insurance Services office, Inc. (ISO) which, as you may be aware, is the source and compiler of any information and data employed by the industry for underwriting purposes." Based upon information, such as studies, reports, etc. known to the insurance industry concerning seat belts on, school buses, no change is anticipated with respect to either pricing or availability of insurance coverage, until such time as the loss-claims experience for school bus carriers demonstrates some impact, either positive or negative, due to the new law. The school bus industry always makes statements such as the following: "School buses are 37 times safer than the family car; they're the safest vehicle on the road. Only the elevator is safer as a means of transporting people." This cute statement has been heard over and over again. Have these people ever stopped to think that they are comparing a school bus, which travels only in daylight, rarely in ice and blizzard conditions, never at 2 a.m. on a Sunday when many drivers on the road are drunk, to cars that do face all these hazards and more. There has never been a study done to compare how safe a school bus is in comparison to a car that only travels under the same optimum conditions as a school bus - to and from school only. It is a fact that half of all school buses involved in fatal crashes occur on field trips. When buses face REAL WORLD situations, their safety record greatly decreases. Statistics on school bus accidents are not reliable statistics. An example of how bad the reporting system is in this country is the fact that California claims that there were only 5 deaths in the last 10 years in Calif.. What about the 29 who died at Martinez, Calif. in 1976 in one bad accident? I guess because they were on their way to sing in another school they are not REAL school children. They didn't even make California's statistics for deaths related to school bus accidents. One year in NJ in the very early 70's the Senate Education Dept. claimed there were 13 minor injuries for the year and said, "why worry - only scraped knees… Physicians For Automotive Safety found that in one accident alone there had been 48 children taken to the hospital - 6 with fractures. It had been a roll-over. When PAS members went to the State Ed Dept. they were told that those children didn't count - they were on a field trip. While I am on the subject of injuries, I must discuss the worst type of misrepresentation that has surfaced to date - that regarding the potential injury to a young child wearing a lap belt. The best example of this keeps occurring over and over again. The American Association for Automotive Medicine was misquoted several years ago and the misquote keeps reappearing verbatim in literature from pupil transportation officials, contractors, school boards and drivers. The AAAM has had to write many letters categorically denying the following misquote: "The AAAM advises against securing young children solely by lap belts in either passenger autos or buses. This is because the abdominal section of young children is not sufficiently developed to withstand the stress caused by lap belts in the event of collision…" I now quote from the AAAM: "I do not know the source of your information concerning this Association, but the statement you made is absolutely incorrect - We have never taken a position as you stated in the newspaper article. I would appreciate knowing who or what your source of information is so that we may correct this erroneous information…" Further proof of the safety involved in use of lap belts in small children can be seen in the fact that every state in the country has passed infant restraint usage laws and many allow very young children to use a lap belt only. Even babies of 18 months are allowed to ride in a lap belt alone in some states. There is no way that the national medical associations I listed earlier would endorse something that would induce injury. Many state legislatures will be grappling with the, question of belts on buses this year, New York now has to grapple again with the elimination of ‘standees.’ Only 13 states still allow standees and I personally have spent 14 years fighting for their elimination in NY. We actually require 20% over and above the seating capacity to stand if a district is to get their full state aid for their transportation in NY. This seems to be the basis for the problems involved in eliminating them. School Boards insist that they will suffer too great a fiscal crisis if standees are eliminated. It is very hard for the parents to lobby against state associations that have a paid lobbyist in Albany at all times. Last year we finally had a bill that was going to pass. It eliminated standees over a 4 year period. I wasn't happy with a phase out period but I am a political realist and accepted it as the only means of Passing the bill. At the very end of our session, the Senate sponsor felt that it was senseless to pass a bill that didn't address the entire problem. By revamping the entire state-aid formula and allowing the transportation of children who live one mile from school instead of one and a half miles, district would be able to handle the overload of kids who stood and to receive aid for their transportation. The Assembly could not accept this great a fiscal impact at the end of session, so they passed their own original version of the standees bill and the Senate passed their new version. Consequently, even though everybody wanted to eliminate standees, there was no compatible bill to send to the Governor to sign. Both bills, in their 1986 wording, have just been introduced again. We will now work towards a compromise between the Assembly and the Senate and hope that children don't suffer any further injustice in this area. You may hear opponents use the fact that NY still allows standees as a reason not to follow our example for seat belts onschool buses. This has nothing to do with the fact that we should make the seating compartment as safe as Possible. It is just as ridiculous that some children in NY have had to stand while those seated had the benefit of compartmentalization, a form of passive restraint. I would also like to make it clear that most districts in NY eliminated standees a decade or two ago and simply took a slight cut n their state aid. The practice is not as wide spread as you would think. At this point, I feel it is important to describe to you some accidents where seat belts have proven themselves on large buses and some accidents where there were no belts for comparison I have enclosed newspaper coverage where possible. Let me preface this section by quoting part of a news article that appeared after a minor accident had occurred on a rainy day. It appeared in the 'Three Village Herald,' October 2, 1986 in Long Island, NY: "District and bus company officials attribute the accident to slick road conditions. A misty drizzle had started minutes before the accident happened.... Eileen Schaefer, director of transportation for the Three Village School District ... said that the bus drivers are taught to deal with the rain and the fallen leaves, but she added that there is not much a driver can do when a car skids into the bus... This is the third time this year that a car has run into the driver's side of one of Amboy's buses.... "It's not a frequent occurrence and when it does happen -every one that I have seen – something hits us," said Schaefer. "I really think that school bus drivers are capable and skilled."" This is what you - the legislators making the decision - must always keep in mind. We can require 60 hours of driver training, but there will always be "the other guy." At that point, children must be offered the very best protection available. Manatee, Florida - April 1985 - "Children in bus accident helped by belts. "Two hurt in school bus accident remain in critical condition." Those were the two who did NOT wear their seat belts when this large, Type I school bus was hit broadside by a fully loaded dump truck and flipped over. "We would like to think that, with seat belts, the children incurred less injury because all the children were belted in their seats when we found them, Florida Highway Patrol Trooper W.A. Hart said. [except one child with a velcro belt in his wheel chair and the monitor]. Newark, NJ - March 1986 – "Pupils unhurt as bus and police car collide." The large school bus then flipped over. "Thank goodness they (the youngsters) were wearing seat belts," Pocchio said [commander of the South District Police], adding it "definitely" made the difference. "The bus driver [no belt]...was treated for back pains, while bus attendant [no belt] .... was treated for injuries to the neck, back and side, police said." Ten days prior to this accident, not far away on Long Island, NY we see an accident with almost identical dynamics. The big difference was - NO BELTS. News headlines read: "School Bus Overturns; 20 Hurt, DWI Charged." After colliding with the utility pole, police said, the bus landed on the driver's side in a grassy ditch, its roof caved in ... Flores [13 year old girl], who was sitting on the driver's side, was crushed under the weight of several students who fell on her as the bus lurched over. Her left arm was fractured after it was knocked through a shattered window. She said in the chaos, she couldn't remember how she got outside.... Jaqueline Salkey, 14... said she was on the right side of the bus and hit her head as she was hurled across the aisle ... David [whose picture is enclosed for you], 11... was receiving treatment for a three inch gash above his left eye, which was swollen shut, and had a shallow bruise down his left cheek." Montoursville, Penna - March 4, 1985 – "The first reportable school bus accident in at least eight years ... has left many people asking, "Why aren't there seat belts in school buses?" Police Report said: "Unit #1[car] slid through the intersection after attempting to stop for traffic control device. Oper. #2 [bus driver] stated he saw Unit #1 sliding through the STOP sign and attempted to swerve around by moving towards the center line. However, Unit #1 continued into Montour St. striking Unit #2 in the front wheel on the right side... The roadway was covered with ice and snow...13 persons were taken to the hospital for treatment immediately following the accident. 2 other persons went to the hospital for treatment approximately 3 hours after the accident...22 were injured ... It is the opinion of this officer that if there had been some type of restraint for the passengers on the school bus the amount and type of injuries would have been kept to a minimum. All of the injuries sustained were from the students striking the back of the seat in front of them. Impact-speed was 30 miles ... " This was a 1984, Federal Standard bus with Compartmentalization. Where was the protection? These are the everyday minor injuries that go unnoticed except by the victim and the victim’s parents - AND THE DOCTORS. Monclair, NJ - Feb. 1987 - never made the newspapers - bus with belts in an accident. The only two who were hurt were not wearing their belts. Last Saturday night I received a call from the President of the National Coalition for Seatbelts on School Buses, Nancy Bauder, from Leavenworth, KS. Nancy had originally found us in the end of 1984 because she had decided to share with us an accident that had occurred in her town. The school district was not very happy about the publicity.. On October 15, 1984-just one year before Paul Goodrow's needless death in Mahopac, NY - a 4 year old girl had to have her arm amputated after she fell from one side of the bus to the other as it slowly rolled over. Her arm went through the window. She was the only passenger on this large bus. Imagine what could have happened had it been full. Nancy's call this past Saturday night was a similarly horrible story… but was reported in the paper as a school bus accident involving only minor injuries. One newspaper said there were one or two moderate injuries. Only because she is a nurse did she discover this story - told to her by the doctor who treated one of the VICTIMS. A young Jr. high school age girl went face first into a window. She severed her nose and required 94 stitches to place it back on her face and hold the rest of her face together. The prognosis is that she will need 10 years of plastic surgery with a total of 200-300 stitches. This girl's life is destroyed. She was modeling part time and studying ballet in order to prepare to enter the KS Jr. Miss contest, a very big event in KS. Yes - the parents are going to sue because there were no seat belts - just like parents in North Carolina, Mississippi, Kentucky, Montana and Calif. who have also decided to sue over the past year or two. But we never would have heard of this story had Nancy Bauder not worked for the doctor who was outraged over this senseless incident. This is nothing more than one of those "minor" or "moderate" injuries that come to my attention every day of my life now, as the leader of this movement. How many of those news articles would turn out to be a story like this young girl's story? If only we had the time and the contacts needed to investigate them. The word ‘investigate’ leads me to the last category that I will be discussing, a very important one eluded to in much of my testimony: the studies done to date that deal with the issue of seat belts on large Type I school buses. Recently, there have been calls for more studies on the installation of seat belts on large type I school buses, but we must keep in mind that thorough investigation has been conducted on the issue since 1967, culminating in a research report released in April 1986 by the NY joint Legislative Commission on Critical Transportation Choices. The following is a list of studies that dealt with the use of seat belts as protective devices for passengers on school buses. The first two have-been quoted earlier in my testimony, but I am including them so that the chronology will be clear. 1. 1967 - 'School Bus Passenger Protection,' Severy, Brink & Baird, Institute of Transportation & Traffic Engineering, UCLA: "These bus experiments, the many actual school bus accidents investigated by the authors, the many types of collision experiments conducted during the past 16 years by the authors, and investigations by others, clearly establish the value in passenger protection of lap belts when used with high back seats. These restraints can be added to the safety seat at very little added cost and their presence provides the continuity needed for proper training of youth concerning habitual use of restraints when riding in any vehicle." 2. 1971 - 'Bus Collision Causation & Injury Patterns,’ Siegel & Nahum, Trauma Research Group, UC San Diego; Runge, Automobile Club of Southern California: It is ... recommended that the seats be padded and that all buses be equipped with restraint systems capable of being activated by each individual. Restraint within the seat area is essential for injury minimization..." [The authors of both of these studies have been quoted in newspapers and have given interviews on TV over the past two years saying that they still call for the addition of seat belts to the Federal Standards.] 3. 1978 -'School Bus Passenger Seat And Lap Belt Sled Tests,' Bayer, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration [Unbelted dummy:] "there are other potentially harmful body loadings that are not covered by Table 1. This became very apparent when viewing the high speed film documentation of the, sled tests .... resulted with the[unbelted] dummy impacting the seat back with its throat. ...the dummy's hip was stopped abruptly ... allowing the torso to rotate until the head made contact with the seat back. Once the head made contact with the seat back a violent whipping set in the dummy's spine... Impacts to the neck and throat of the [unbelted] dummy appear to offer the greatest protection from [head injury] ... However, this injury potential of this loading configuration has yet to be determined.. FURTHER STUDY IS NEEDED [on the UNbelted dummies]." 4. 1985 - 'School Bus Safety Study,' Transport Canada: Large Type I School Bus: Highest Head Injury Criteria (HIC) level on the dummies was 731,which was registered on a belted dummy. (1,000 being fatal)... Highest Chest Acceleration level on the dummies was 60.4, which was registered on an Unbelted dummy (60 being fatal). The only dummy that would have suffered fatal injury was an UNbelted dummy. I am prepared to show you pertinent parts of the film made of this study. 5. 1985 - 'School Bus Safety in New York... Children At Risk? NY Legislative Commission on Critical Transportation Choice, "All school buses manufactured for use in NY state after July 1, 1986 should be equipped with seatbelts." 6. 1985 - 'Safety Belts In School Buses,’ National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: "Nothing prohibits a State or local jurisdiction from purchasing buses equipped with safety belts. School Districts that want to provide safety belts in their large school buses are free to do so.... 50% of the occupant fatalities in school buses occur in rollover accidents and 14.7% of the occupant fatalities occur in side impact accidents. It is in these types of accidents that safety belts might be most likely to provide additional safety benefits to school bus occupants. One reason for this is ejections, which could be prevented by belts, represent 1/4 of all fatalities." "...the Canadian tests should be viewed with. caution." 7. 1986 – "School Bus Safety Belts: Their Use, Carryover Effects and Administrative Issues," National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: "Most transportation directors and coordinators were former drivers or bus contractor employees who had initially had reservations about school bus safety belts. After initial experience with the program, however, all favored equipping their entire large bus fleets with belts ... Many school administrators and drivers in the study sites reported positive effects of a belted bus program on student onboard bus conduct, i.e., improved student discipline and reduced driver distractions ... While riding one of the non-belted buses, a field investigator observed the driver spoke to the students about their behavior 20 times in a 25 minute period...In two other instances, the investigator could distinguish between the belt-equipped and the unequipped buses lined up in front of the school by observing the behavior of the students on the buses. Even in the district with the lowest reported belt usage rate, the drivers maintained that the belt program had a significant effect on behavior." 8. 1986 - 'Increasing School Bus Safety for New York State's Children through Seat Belts on School Buses and the Elimination of Standees,' NY Legislative Commission on Critical Transportation Choices: "Safety belts should be standard equipment on every school bus manufactured on and after July 1, 1987, for use in this State." Barry Felrice, Associate Administrator for Rulemaking for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in a letter dated June 13, 1986, to Mr. Jack Gotte, reiterates NHTSA's position regarding the need for further study on the effectiveness safety of seat belts on school buses: "...we emphasize [in the 1985 NHTSA study] "Nothing prohibits a state or local jurisdiction from purchasing buses equipped with safety belts. School districts that want to provide safety belts in their large school buses are free to do so..." ... we have no evidence that new studies would enhance school bus safety or provide a better perspective on the use of safety belts in large school buses. There is no other federal level study going on now. The bill in Congress that may have authorized a study by the National Academy of Sciences on school bus safety died in October 1986. It is now part of the House of Representatives comprehensive highway authorization act but was not included in the Senate version. I would be remiss here if I did not cover 4 more studies that I am sure the opponents will be enumerating for you at a later date: 1. Thomas Side Collision Tests, May 1985 - I have brought the movie of this study with me and would like the opportunity to show you a part of it that will demonstrate what I am about to explain: To refute our claims that the compartmentalized school bus seat does not offer adequate side collision protection, the Thomas Bus Company funded a side collision crash test. Belted dummies were seated next to UNbelted dummies in a small type II school bus. The bus was impacted from the side. The unbelted dummies - remained in the "compartment" because during the side collision they were thrown into the belted dummies. The belted dummies acted like padded side arms and helped keep the unbelted dummies in their seating area. Unfortunately, school buses don't have padded side arms to contain children during side collision. The National Coalition for Seatbelts on School buses questions the motives of the Thomas Bus Co.'s side collision test, as do bio-mechanical engineers we have consulted with on this test. If you watch the film carefully, you will note a right side dummy, seated by the window, fly up and in front of the belted dummy next to him, slamming down onto the aisle corner of the seat in front of him, landing on the side of his chest in the armpit area, a very vulnerable area of the body. He then flies back up and down into his seat, appearing at the end of the test that he hadn't moved. There were no transducers (energy absorption measuring devices) in that area of his chest so it appears as though his chest would not have suffered any injury, since the measurements of the transducer in the middle of the chest were very low. Mr. Morris Adams, a Vice President of Thomas Built Buses, is known as the "evangelist" against seat belts on school buses. He does not relate what I just told you, even though he has seen the same film that you will see. Out of the entire list of opponents of seatbelts on school buses, Mr. Adams is the most blatant example, of not telling the whole story. If you have the opportunity to hear a manufacturer speak, remember that their customers are the very people who have opposed all school bus safety features in the past: contractors, transportation officials and school boards. He does not sell one school bus to a parent or child. 2. Thomas Crash Test,_May 1986 - Again, I have the film of this test if you care to see it. Here Thomas compared a lap belted dummy to a shoulder/lap belted dummy in order to try to validate the findings of the National Transportation Safety Board(NTSB) Report on the effectiveness of lap belts in the rear seats of cars. That study had not even been published yet and Mr. Adams was using it against belts on buses. It was written up in the industry newsletter, 'School Transportation Director' in a manner that did not seem to make any sense. I asked several engineers to take a look at it and the following letter from Dr. John States, whom I spoke of earlier and whose Curriculum Vitae I have enclosed, sums up the feelings of these people regarding this May 1986 test: "...it is reasonable to assume that the lap belt remained low over the pelvis and that submaring did not occur. This would allow transmission of the recorded belt loads directly to the pelvis which is entirely capable of tolerating such belt loads without injury.... Injury to the contents of the abdomen would not occur....... The report of the NTSB concerning rear seat lap belts is not relevant for school buses because of the closeness of the seats to each other front to back (compartmentalization), the increased stiffness of the school bus seat cushions, and the more upright position and lower foot placement of the seated occupant." I have enclosed the entire letter and hope you will read it in its entirety. 3. Nat'l Transportation Safety Board Study, August 1986, "Performance of Lap belts in 26 Frontal Crashes"- The outrage of safety organizations such as the Nat'l Safety Council and of governmental agencies such as NHTSA and Transport Canada was heard across the country. This report, ‘inconclusive’' by NTSB’s own admittance, had an extremely damaging effect on the riding American public. A great blow had unfairly been dealt to occupant restraint in general. The public became afraid of belt use. In order to force the car manufacturers to install outboard rear seat shoulder straps the NTSB lost its credibility by conducting a study unscientifically. I have enclosed several rebuttal papers but the bulk of the scientific papers that have been published are too voluminous to include. I have personally attended four highly technical conferences for Senator Norman Levy where this study has been discussed through formal papers, floor discussion and informal discussions before and after the technical sessions. These conferences were international in scope, put on by the Society of Automotive Engineers, the American Association for Automotive Medicine and NHTSA and the National Safety Council. The attendees of these conferences feel that shoulder harnesses would be the best form of restraint in any seating position in a car, out that your chance of survival is definitely increased in the back seat of a car if you wear the lap belt that is now provided. The NTSB will not come out and say that they feel the lap belt should be worn. It seems the only people giving this study any credibility are the opponents of seat belts on school buses! As far as any carry over to a large schoolbus - IF THE STUDY WERE CREDIBLE - is dealt with in the enclosed letter by Dr. A. Seigel, one of the authors of the 1971 UC San Diego Traum Research Group study. He, along with Dr. States and Lynn Smith (author of the above NTSB study) say you cannot extrapolate from the car study to a large school bus. The seat in the rear of a car is soft and usually tilted down at the back of the seat cushion. Not so in a school bus. The seat is rigid, making submaring almost impossible (the slipping of the pelvis bones down and under the belt; allowing the belt to intrude into soft tissue area). As explained in an earlier letter by Dr. States, the seats are spaced closely together so that the knees contact the seat back in front sooner than they would in a car. This close spacing is often used against belts in buses, but what is not mentioned is that the seat spacing in the small vans is identical and we've had belts in those buses since 1977. The most obvious reason to a biomechanical engineer as to why buses are different than cars is that the size and weight differences cause the forces from the crash to be dissipated throughout the bus before it ever reaches a passenger. This allows the belt to work much more effectively in a large bus. The Canadian Crash Tests pointed this out beautifully. The difference between a bus and a car is brought up constantly by opponents of belts on school buses when they think it is helping their case. An article appeared in the NY State School Board Association Journal, June 1984, written by Pete James, then President of the NY Assoc. for Pupil Transportation and a member of the Commissioner of Education's Transportation Advisory Committee. He is presently the Liaison between the Nat'l Assoc. for Pupil Transportation and the NYAPT. I think Mr. James makes my point quite well, and I quote: "A UNIQUE VEHICLE - It is important to this discussion that we disassociate the school bus from the automobile. Buses are a unique vehicle in many ways and are not at all similar to your family car." I also draw your attention to an article in 'Nation's Schools Report,' December 3, 1984, "School Bus Seat Belts May Be Coming Closer." It was a report on what an expert from NHTSA told a Wisconsin Child Passenger Safety Association Conference. I'd like to quote this article that discussed Dr. James Nichols' remarks: "In his talk .... Nichols admitted he used to think that way too [was against belts in buses]. But after joining the child restraint program in NHTSA, he decided that most of the arguments could be turned around in favor of school bus seat belts. ..The fact that school buses absorb more crash energy than cars because of their larger size is an argument in favor [emphasis is author's] of installing belts, he said. The bigger size 'makes all the more reason why you should have belts, because safety belts work much better in a 20g crash than they do in a 60g crash."...School officials tell him they're not so much against seat belts as they are in favor of compartmentalization, he said. "Why be against either of them? They work together... Without belts in a severe crash you may have unconscious or fatally injured students - and an unconscious aide .... But belts would provide a better chance that students would survive a crash conscious, and could get themselves out. Even very young children can disengage a seat belt." 4. NTSB unpublished Study on 44 large school bus crashes - due for release this Spring - preliminary findings were released at a technical briefing and therefore we know basically what NTSB will conclude regarding seat belts on school buses. Their report will address several issues, but since my testimony tonight is on belts I will relate their feelings on this issue alone. NTSB feels that lap belt use would not have made a difference in injury levels as a whole, but that they did find instances where-belts would have made a difference. They feel that perhaps money could be better spent on maintenance, driver training and better driver belts. Only 3 out of the 44 buses studied had belts. How could they come to a valid conclusion? It is here that the parents and the medical profession disagree with NTSB. The NHTSA 1986 study showed us that belts reduce driver distraction. There is no proof positive that increased driver training will ever have the same effect. Besides, parents and doctors feel there will be protection from injury and an educational carry-over to the car. We feel it will be cost-effective. We must also keep in mind that the NTSB has suffered a blow to their credibility due to their stance on lap belt use in cars. It is no wonder that they are striving for consistency in their position on lap belt effectiveness. While on the subject of the anticipated NTSB findings on cost effectiveness: University of Texas, School of Public Health, January 1985 – December 1985 - reported it would be cost effective to install lap belts on buses in Texas. According to the study, $13.5 million dollars were spent on school bus occupant injuries in Texas from Jan. '85 to Dec. ‘85, "a law mandating safety belts in Texas school buses would be cost-beneficial in the long run." Transport Canada(equivalent to our NHTSA) has been working for a year on developing alternatives to front facing school bus seats with lap belts. They studied five alternatives and the results are due out this Spring. They have found that shoulder harnesses, as good as they are, have grave drawbacks for school buses. In order to put shoulder harnesses on a seat meeting Fed. Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 222 we would have to change the energy absorbing capabilities. Instead of a seat that yielded forward and rearward on impact, (thus reducing the energy absorbed by an unrestrained passenger flying into it) the seat would have to be stiff and rigid in order to take the load of the shoulder strap. This would leave a child who forgot to buckle up in a very dangerous position if the bus was in an accident. We would be back to the unsafe seat we transported children on until the inception of the federal standards in 1977. Thomas Built Bus has addressed this subject in a letter I have enclosed from Mr. Mathieson, Director of Engineering, to Mr. Bynum from Richmond, VA: "FMVSS 222 does not allow the seat back to have a stiffness that causes bending forces to exceed 2400 lbs. at the application point of the test force. But FMVSS 210 requires a shoulder belt to resist a minimum of 3000 lbs. without yielding." This explains very well how we would have two standards in conflict with each other. Opponents of seat belts on school buses are now saying "let's wait until shoulder harnesses are developed for school buses," knowing full well that this is not possible unless we jeopardize unbelted children's faces and heads. Everybody knows we will not get 100% usage 100% of the time. This is another stalling technique. Transport Canada liked the rear facing seats with lap belts the best and hopes to experiment with this set up, n the real world. It is my feeling that this is going a bit too far when we don't have a problem with lap belts on the large type I buses in the first place. Let me reiterate that the highest Head Injury Criteria on the LARGE bus in the Canadian study was 731. All we are addressing here is the LARGE bus. The number used in that Canadian study as the level judged high enough to cause serious injury or death was 1,000. The crash was a worst case scenario, agreed cn by both governments that we will never see an accident of that severity in the real world - yet we still did alright with lap belts on the LARGE bus. What the opponents leave out is perhaps the most important piece of information in the Canadian Study only one of the 6 dummies on the LARGE bus would have died if we use their criteria - an UNBELTED dummy. He suffered chest accelerations of 60.4, 60 being fatal. Why do opponents omit this salient point? The National Association of Pupil Transportation is unfairly misrepresenting most of these studies in NY in an at tempt to overturn our law and I imagine they will be in Ohio trying to stop the passage of Senator Fisher's bill. They will claim that the NTSB car rear seat lap belt study was not only valid (they stand alone in two countries on this issue with Thomas) but that it can be applied to buses: They will ask "what part of a car is most like an auto mobile?" They will ask you to "compare both for yourselves," as they have asked the NY DOT at a public hearing on December 17, 1986,where only the new installation standards were supposed to have been discussed. They never give up. The DOT officials made it clear to them that the time for arguing the issue is over, but they persisted, and I quote their position paper that I have enclosed: "We firmly believe you will see striking similarities in the two internal environments [car and school bus] which should in turn cause you concern and require serious deliberation prior to a decision." Isn’t it Pete James, the NY Liaison to the NAPT who I quoted earlier, who said: "It is important to disassociate the school bus from the automobile. Buses are a unique vehicle in many ways and are not at all similar to you family car." This statement was made in 1984. Can you see a pattern of using any and all information in any way that they can to accomplish the immediate goal they are working towards? The NAPT even tried to claim in their December position paper for NY that the UCLA test of 1967 recommended 28" high seat backs "in combination with lap and [emphasis their own] shoulder harnesses." You will see for yourselves that the 1967 study called for 28" seats in conjunction with lap belts, not shoulder harnesses, when you view the film, ‘Broken Bus’. As for the PA School Bus Association film I believe you saw, "Safety Belts on School Buses – Good idea or Bad?" – I would like to share with you Dr. States’ feelings on it. Again, they parallel the feelings of doctors from the Academy of Paediatrics that I showed it to and several other engineers and safety experts: "I looked at "Safety Belts on School Buses – Good Idea or Bad?" and found it to be the usual rehash of old misinformation and false issues. The logical source for information concerning use of safety belts on school buses are districts with the belts in use. Instead, the producers chose to go to districts that have never tried the belts. No experience or evidence is provided by districts where safety belts are in use. Secondly, a physician of unknown background, knowledge and experience provides the only interpretation of the 1985 Canadian tests. It is obvious he has no knowledge of dummy and human kinematics, nor any awareness of the vast differences between the two. Lastly, an old shebolith is pulled out again – education programs. The failure of such programs to reduce accidents through driver education and to prevent injuries through safety belt education programs has been indisputably established. There is no reason to believe that it will work any better for the control of drivers who pass school buses or for children’s behavior outside school buses. I did not see any indication of who provided the funds for the production of this tape. I noted that a Thomas engineer was quoted and pictured in the tape." Senator Lee Fisher has a bill before you, SB19, which thoroughly encompasses the whole picture of seat belts on school buses. He has included the 28" seat for whiplash protection. You will be providing not only needed occupant restraint but whiplash protection and better compartmentalization at the same time. Senator Fisher has incorporated the development of instructional materials for use in proper usage of seat belts for all students, such a vital part of achieving usage. To be fair, and to make the bill more acceptable to those who will be involved in the every day operation of the buses with belts, you have exempted drivers, etc., from liability having to do with nonuse of a seat belt. It is here that I would make a suggestion for an amendment. Our original bill exempted for USE and NONUSE. In redrafting our bill last year to delineate more thoroughly who would be exempt, an omission occurred. We did not put in the word USE. We now may amend out law to include USE again in the liability exemptions. To avoid your drivers and boards of education calling for this after the bill passes, I recommend you insert USE or NONUSE of a belt. It has been a great honor to address you on this most complex issue. I hope you will ask questions of me if you are still hesitating about any aspect of seat belts on school buses or if I have been unclear. Please feel free to contact me in New York if I can be of any assistance in the future. Senator Fisher is going down in history as being in the vanguard of safety in the world of school bus transportation and occupant restraint in general. I hope you will decide to join him in this position. Thank you for your patience.
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