“Buckle your seat belt,” that famous parental admonition, is the undisputed law of the land in the back seats of minivans across America. Yet as school buses hit the road again this fall, those big yellow machines will transport millions of unrestrained children to class on buckle-free seats.
Several recent accidents - including the fall of a yellow bus when the Minneapolis bridge collapsed - have brought new attention to a national debate over whether seatbelts, a decades-old car safety feature, should be required on school buses.
“Every time a bus stops short, kids get smashed (against the seat),” says Dr. Alan Ross, president of the National Coalition for School Bus Safety, an advocacy group. “Do you know how many times a vehicle stops short to avoid accidents?”
About five children are killed in school buses every year, according to the Transportation Research Board, making it the safest form of transportation in the United States. But a study published in the November 2006 issue of Pediatrics showed 17,000 children are injured in school bus-related accidents each year, more than double the previous government estimate.
The federal government has rejected mandating seat belts in favor of “compartmentalization” - keeping kids in narrow spaces with high seat backs that are energy-absorbant.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, among others, says this safety measure proves inadequate in side-impact and rollover crashes.
“One of my patients came in, and her teeth were knocked out in a school bus crash. She's seven years old and she has dentures,” says Dr. Phyllis Agran, a co-author of the AAP study. “When a ball hits her in the face or when she bites something hard, something breaks. It's a huge cost and an appearance issue.”
The controversy is polarized by disagreement among government officials, creating a legislative impasse in several states. Frustrated by the inaction, some concerned parents are taking matters into their own hands.
“All you have to do is look at the crash videos,” says Steve Forman, a parent in Beaumont, Texas. “Crash test videos that show dummies and exactly what happens to your child in a bus accident.”
Forman's 18-year-old daughter, Allison, experienced the full force of a rollover bus accident while en route to a soccer playoff game in Houston on March 29, 2006. Trapped beneath the motor coach bus, Allison's left arm was crushed and mangled. Two of her teammates were killed and several others were seriously injured.
The bus they were riding in lacked seat belts and other basic safety features, their parents discovered afterward. Then, to their dismay, they learned that none of the school district's buses contained seat belts.
So the parents formed a group united by the accident: The West Brook Bus Crash Families, named after the girls' soccer team. They lobbied the school board to buy 30 new buses fitted with the SafeGuard School Bus Seat, a new three-point lap and shoulder restraint system developed by IMMI, a company based in Westfield, Ind. The board approved the purchase.
Less than a year later, still bearing scars from the crash, the soccer team rode to another game securely fastened to their seats. But their parents' crusade continued. Testifying before state legislators, they helped enact passage of a bill requiring three-point lap and shoulder restraints on all Texas school buses purchased after September 2010.
Besides Texas, only five states - California, Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey and New York - have any safety belt requirements for school buses. California and Texas remain the only states mandating three-point lap and shoulder belts, widely considered the safest type of restraint. Two-point lap belts, by contrast, are a source of debate over whether students would actually be safer without them.
“Demand continues to grow, and it's driven in part by legislation,” says Steve Wallin, IMMI's director of operations. “But the bigger driving force is concerned parents who are realizing they spend the first five years of their child's life carefully buckling them in, and when they turn six, we put them on the school bus and they are not restrained.”
It costs approximately $7,000 to $9,000 per bus to install the new seats, Wallin says.
The price tag is daunting for financially struggling school districts, and action is often spurred by tragedy. After a school bus lacking seat belts nose-dived off an interstate overpass in Huntsville, Ala., in November 2006, killing four high school students, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley commissioned the Governor's Study Group on School Bus Seat Belts. The panel voted to seek proposals from state universities to conduct a three-year study using 10 to 15 school buses equipped with lap and shoulder belts.
North Carolina is considering a similar study.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration plans to propose a new regulation on school bus safety in October, following a July 11 meeting of safety officials, educators and bus manufacturers that focused on developing better safety methods. But it's unlikely that any recommendation will include mandating seat belts, according to Ron Medford, NHTSA's senior associate administrator for vehicle safety.
NHTSA is opposed to installing three-point safety restraints partly because they would limit buses to two children per seat, as opposed to three, the current number permitted by federal guidelines. That could leave more children walking or riding in cars, which officials consider more dangerous.
Another objection to seat belts is the matter of enforcement: Will students actually wear them? Clifton Guillory, Beaumont's transportation director, believes this argument is a non-issue.
“We don't move the bus unless you're wearing a seat belt. We have a video, we do training with the kids, we show them how to wear and adjust it,” he says. “We just require 100 percent compliance and that's what we get.”
Forman recommends that, above all, worried parents should educate themselves on the issue. Then they should express their concerns to local school officials, he says.
“I would have parents contact their local pediatricians to help them in the advocacy,” says Dr. Agran. “And then be sure to send the (old) buses to the Smithsonian.”
“Every time a bus stops short, kids get smashed (against the seat),” says Dr. Alan Ross, president of the National Coalition for School Bus Safety, an advocacy group. “Do you know how many times a vehicle stops short to avoid accidents?”
About five children are killed in school buses every year, according to the Transportation Research Board, making it the safest form of transportation in the United States. But a study published in the November 2006 issue of Pediatrics showed 17,000 children are injured in school bus-related accidents each year, more than double the previous government estimate.
The federal government has rejected mandating seat belts in favor of “compartmentalization” - keeping kids in narrow spaces with high seat backs that are energy-absorbant.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, among others, says this safety measure proves inadequate in side-impact and rollover crashes.
“One of my patients came in, and her teeth were knocked out in a school bus crash. She's seven years old and she has dentures,” says Dr. Phyllis Agran, a co-author of the AAP study. “When a ball hits her in the face or when she bites something hard, something breaks. It's a huge cost and an appearance issue.”
The controversy is polarized by disagreement among government officials, creating a legislative impasse in several states. Frustrated by the inaction, some concerned parents are taking matters into their own hands.
“All you have to do is look at the crash videos,” says Steve Forman, a parent in Beaumont, Texas. “Crash test videos that show dummies and exactly what happens to your child in a bus accident.”
Forman's 18-year-old daughter, Allison, experienced the full force of a rollover bus accident while en route to a soccer playoff game in Houston on March 29, 2006. Trapped beneath the motor coach bus, Allison's left arm was crushed and mangled. Two of her teammates were killed and several others were seriously injured.
The bus they were riding in lacked seat belts and other basic safety features, their parents discovered afterward. Then, to their dismay, they learned that none of the school district's buses contained seat belts.
So the parents formed a group united by the accident: The West Brook Bus Crash Families, named after the girls' soccer team. They lobbied the school board to buy 30 new buses fitted with the SafeGuard School Bus Seat, a new three-point lap and shoulder restraint system developed by IMMI, a company based in Westfield, Ind. The board approved the purchase.
Less than a year later, still bearing scars from the crash, the soccer team rode to another game securely fastened to their seats. But their parents' crusade continued. Testifying before state legislators, they helped enact passage of a bill requiring three-point lap and shoulder restraints on all Texas school buses purchased after September 2010.
Besides Texas, only five states - California, Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey and New York - have any safety belt requirements for school buses. California and Texas remain the only states mandating three-point lap and shoulder belts, widely considered the safest type of restraint. Two-point lap belts, by contrast, are a source of debate over whether students would actually be safer without them.
“Demand continues to grow, and it's driven in part by legislation,” says Steve Wallin, IMMI's director of operations. “But the bigger driving force is concerned parents who are realizing they spend the first five years of their child's life carefully buckling them in, and when they turn six, we put them on the school bus and they are not restrained.”
It costs approximately $7,000 to $9,000 per bus to install the new seats, Wallin says.
The price tag is daunting for financially struggling school districts, and action is often spurred by tragedy. After a school bus lacking seat belts nose-dived off an interstate overpass in Huntsville, Ala., in November 2006, killing four high school students, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley commissioned the Governor's Study Group on School Bus Seat Belts. The panel voted to seek proposals from state universities to conduct a three-year study using 10 to 15 school buses equipped with lap and shoulder belts.
North Carolina is considering a similar study.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration plans to propose a new regulation on school bus safety in October, following a July 11 meeting of safety officials, educators and bus manufacturers that focused on developing better safety methods. But it's unlikely that any recommendation will include mandating seat belts, according to Ron Medford, NHTSA's senior associate administrator for vehicle safety.
NHTSA is opposed to installing three-point safety restraints partly because they would limit buses to two children per seat, as opposed to three, the current number permitted by federal guidelines. That could leave more children walking or riding in cars, which officials consider more dangerous.
Another objection to seat belts is the matter of enforcement: Will students actually wear them? Clifton Guillory, Beaumont's transportation director, believes this argument is a non-issue.
“We don't move the bus unless you're wearing a seat belt. We have a video, we do training with the kids, we show them how to wear and adjust it,” he says. “We just require 100 percent compliance and that's what we get.”
Forman recommends that, above all, worried parents should educate themselves on the issue. Then they should express their concerns to local school officials, he says.
“I would have parents contact their local pediatricians to help them in the advocacy,” says Dr. Agran. “And then be sure to send the (old) buses to the Smithsonian.”
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