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School Bus
Do u think all busses need seat belts. watch the video and see what you think.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by lutan1 on
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Seatbelts over here is a no brainer- it's been a national law since the early 70's that everyone including emergency services must wear seat belts.
The exception to this is ambulance officers treating in the rear of an ambulance and obviously buses as per my previosu post.
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Permalink Reply by Justin Buck on
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we need to send our heads of state over there to learn something new.
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i think if we start haven kids wear seatbelts on a bus. then when they get older to drive they might wear there seatbelts when they drive. it might i think will cut down on teens and adults from beening killed while driveing
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thats true i wonder if there is a way to make this work
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im glad you agree with me
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Permalink Reply by Chief 29 on
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It is a no brainer. Seat belts should be mandatory in buses. You wouldn't put your kid on a roller coaster without a lap bar would you? Fortunately my daughter does not ride a bus yet and won't till 7th grade with the exception of field trips, so I have some time to continue to complain and voice my opinion on the issue before she becomes a regular rider.
Enforcement would not be that difficult. The Technology today is far to advanced to say that it can't be done.
Sensors in the seats that alert the driver that there is weight in the seat without the seat belt buckled would probably be the best. Besides that there seems to be a problem with making children in general follow rules/laws. Don't just wonder if they will use them require it!
I am as much into safety as as everyone else proclaims to be, and It is expected and enforced by most to buckle up when in a fire truck but we can't seem to make it a requirement for our children on a bus. There are standards eliminating equipment in our cabs but whats the difference in a bus with book bags, instrument cases, lunch boxes, and what ever else students take to and from school???
If legislation can dictate if we can get have a fire truck made without certain safety features then the question is why can't it be done for the production of school buses?
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has done years of school bus accident analysis. They have a page that shows computer models of real-life school bus wrecks, with comparative models that show the relative injury and fatality rates that would be expected if the school buses had passenger seat belts.
Interestingly, the models show that seat belts would have actually increased the fatality rate in many school bus wrecks.
There are several reasons for this.
1) School buses usually travel at slower speeds than do passenger cars and trucks, to the mechanisms of injury are reduced.
2) Most school bus accidents involve a smaller vehicle underriding the bus from the side, and seat belts won't protect the bus passengers form this mechanism at all. That's due to the impact occurring below the level of the bus passenger compartment floor and the bus sheet metal design absorbing most of that force.
3) In the really serious bus crashes, the bus collides with very large vehicles such as tractor-trailers, dump trucks, or trains...in other words, vehicles that have lots of mass and bring a very high level of kinetic energy to the bus crash. Seat belts won't protect kids from a freight train collision at a grade crossing.
Additionally, it is going to be virtually impossible for a single bus driver to make 40 kids wear the seat belts correctly, all the time. Partial or improper seat belt wear may actually increaase the injury rate and/or severity compared to unrestrained passenger injury rate and severity.
Here's the NHTSA page with links to some of the crash modeling and other information:
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/portal/site/nhtsa/template.MAXIMIZE/menuit...
School buses have a VERY low injury and death rate compared to passenger cars.
The latest NHTSA data shows a passenger car death rate of 1.5 per 100 million passenger miles compared to a 0.02 death rate per 100 million passenger miles for school buses.
Ben
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More on this...
A 2002 NHTSA report states "An analysis of test data by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has concluded that lap belts appear to have little, if any, benefit in reducing serious-to-fatal injuries in severe frontal crashes. On the contrary, lap belts could increase the incidence of serious neck injuries and possibly abdominal injury among young passengers in severe frontal crashes."
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/portal/site/nhtsa/template.MAXIMIZE/menuit...
In other words, we must make sure that the cure isn't worse than the disease.
Ben
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How does that fit with the NHTSA data that shows that seat belts would actually increase the death rate in many school bus crashes?
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