School buses could be a little safer in the future under some new rules recently adopted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The new rules were adopted by NHTSA earlier this fall but it will be at least three years before some of the regulations actually go into effect.
Among the changes:
- All new school buses will be required to be equipped with 24-inch-high seat backs, instead of the 20-inch-high seat backs required today. Higher seat backs help prevent taller and heavier children from being thrown over the seat in a crash, decreasing the chance of injury to them and the children in front of them.
- All new school buses weighing less than five tons will be required to have three-point seat belts. Lap and shoulder belts are believed to better protect children in small buses, which don’t absorb shock as well as larger buses.
- New standards for seat belts on large school buses; the rules stop short of requiring seat belts on large buses at the federal level. State and local authorities can adopt such requirements if they so choose.
In addition, the federal government will begin allowing school districts to use federal highway safety funds to pay for the cost of installing belts.
In announcing the new rules, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters stressed that school buses are already among the safest forms of ground transportation. She said requiring seat belts on large school buses could reduce their capacity, which could mean more students would travel to school by car or walking, which she said is statistically less safe than riding the bus.
“The last thing we want to do is force parents to choose other, less safe ways of getting their children to school,” she said.
The full version of the new rules is available on the NHTSA Web site.
No seat belts on my bus. I don't want to be responsible for trying to unbuckle 50 kids when the bus catches on fire or goes into water. Kids would definitly die!! We already have the high seat backs and the whole bus is higher off the ground than the older ones, so in case of a T-bone, the kids are above the impact point. Kids are 7.5 times safer on a bus than in their own parents car, even without belts. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
As the driver of a large school bus, I'm wondering who will ensure that students buckle up when they get on the bus and remain buckled up until they reach their destination if these regulations are applied to large buses as well as smaller ones.
These comments against seat belts on large buses are all fuzzy-minded nonsense. Parents are responsible for ensuring that their children buckle up. Any kid who has ridden in a car knows how to unbuckle the belts. The bus fatalities most often occuring are when the bus rolls over. That is when seat belts are critical in any vehicle. Without belts, the occupants have no protection.
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