Public Safety: Seat Belts For School Buses

Seat belts for school buses

I don’t understand how Wisconsin can have a seat belt law which mandates compliance for private vehicles, but yet we allow our children to ride in school buses without the protection of seat belts? It seems like almost every day, somewhere in our country, children and young adults are injured in school bus crashes. I simply find it unacceptable when injuries can be reduced or avoided altogether through the use of seat belts.

A Little History on the Development of School Bus Safety

Throughout history as the number of school buses transporting students increased, so came the inevitable accidents and crashes. It was not long before serious tragedies occurred involving school buses; which caused school officials to think seriously about developing safety standards.

In 1939, representatives from 48 states gathered to develop “standards” and recommendations for school bus safety. Since that time there have been a number of National Conferences on School Transportation where representatives from each state gather to revise existing, and/or establish new safety standards and operating procedures for the safe transportation of school children; including those with disabilities.

Today school buses are the largest type of mass transit in America; providing twice as many passenger trips than that which is offered by transit buses across the nation. Nearly half a million school buses transport 24 million students to and from school — or school related activities — each and every school day, while annually:

school buses travel 4 billion miles
school buses provided 10 billion student trips
student gets on or off school buses 20 billion times

According to national school bus accident statistics, 1,450 people have been killed in school bus related accidents since 1990. Fortunately Wisconsin has seen no local bus accident fatalities in recent years, but numbers as depicted below by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation show a substantial number of school bus related injuries in the past several years.

As the illustration shows, between 2003 and 2008 there were 1,036 school bus occupant injuries in Wisconsin — That’s practically 25% of the total number of crashes!

Our children are defenseless unless we act on their behalf. Let’s not wait for another tragedy to strike. Districts must encourage, if not demand their usage, and overall support must come from the public: parents, administrators and school bus drivers!

Ultimately school bus safety issues are dealt with federally by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the latest standards and other data can be found at the following links:

School Bus Passenger Seating and Crash Protection Upgrade Proposal.pdf

School Bus Crash-worthiness Issues.pdf

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However, although school bus safety issues are governed by the federal government, states are free to adopt standards that exceed federal minimum requirements. And despite the fact that opponents to this form of legislation suggest that seat belts are more trouble then they’re worth and that children won’t wear them, over 200 school districts across the nation have adopted seat belts as an added safety feature; reporting usage rates from 80% to 100%.

My firm position is that seat belts in ALL school buses in Wisconsin would substantially diminish these needless injuries, and for the following reasons Wisconsin should adopt public safety legislation that requires seat belts in all school buses:

Seat belts offer protection against injuries in rollover or side impact crashes.
If a crash occurs, the use of seat belts will reduce the probability of death and the severity of injuries to children correctly seated in school buses.
Seat belt usage in school buses reinforces good safety habits.
Seat belt usage improves passenger behavior and reduces driver distractions.
The cost to install seat belts is nominal.

Here are just a few of the recent school bus tragedies, both local and national:

If I am elected to the Wisconsin State Senate I will vehemently press for the passage of legislation which protects our children and young adults – the future generations of this great state! Can you tolerate your child having to go through this if his or her school bus gets into an accident: