The Kansas Legislature debated last week whether to require school buses to have seat belts. The natural reaction is to say “of course.” After all, we require kids to be buckled in cars. And a school bus wreck could turn small kids into projectiles. But in his Friday column, Eagle news columnist Mark McCormick recalled a horrible bus accident in Kentucky in which the passengers burned to death, in part because they couldn’t exit the bus fast enough. That’s been the main holdup on this issue. If there is an accident, will the students — particularly the younger ones — be able to unbuckle themselves and get out? Is that risk a bigger concern than the possible injuries from not being buckled? What do you think?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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21 Comments
The thought of children dying in a raging bus fire is a thought that leaves a definite impresion. One of those pleas tailor-made to move people to act before thinking. It is also something that I hope and pray that in my lifetime, I will never have to witness. However, what is the percentage of wrecks that result in the vehicle to burst into flames. I do not know. But, I do know one thing for a fact. Any wreck involving children in a bus is going to turn them into flying missles. Any roll-over, any sudden stop, any side crash. So, for the overall safety of the children, I would vote for seatbelts. And the school systems to be held legally resposible for their enforcement.
If the bus flipped over on it top & all the kids were in seat belts, they would just be hanging there with the weight of their bodies hanging in the belts because of the high roof, Would this not be painful also. Yes it better then death, but how painful and how much time would they be there before some one could safely get them down.
Is bus driver going to be held responsible if kids don’t buckle up? What a nightmare. I would not want to be a driver if that was the case – let the parents take them to and from school in their own car!
Seat belts should be put in a thousand buses picked at random around the country.
After five years, accident figures for should be compared for those buses against the non-equipped buses.
I would think just keeping kids in their seats would reduce accidents by about 50 percent.
At the risk of being totally out of character, I agree with PL on this. Rather than pass a blanket law, do a substantial sized test.
And, like uriliah mentioned, who is going to be responsible for keeping the little darlings in their seat belts? Are we talking additional bus monitors now? That is something that could be proven by PL’s idea.
Good idea, PL. (yes, I am still in shock!)
Clarification…my “in shock” comment was about my agreement with PL, not that he had a good idea.
PS thought…as far as the cost is concerned, I doubt we would ever really see the direct effects of the cost..yes, it will cost millions, but I would think that could be budgeted. Not having any kids, I have no personal stake in this other than wondering if it would really work.
The fact is, seatbelts save lives. That in itself should be reason enough to equip school busses with seatbelts.On a lighter note, why not include handcuffs or straight-jackets? I’m sure bus drivers everywhere would appreciate that.
School buses probably aren’t really safe no matter what you do to them. Both sides are right. For some accidents, seat belts would save lives; for others they would cause deaths. Probably, if there is an increase in bus accidents, it is because of the situations buses are having to drive on now – freeways, more traffic, longer circuits, etc. I am not trying to make a case against busing, but I think it is a factor. I also agree that unless they put more adult monitors on buses, having the driver responsible and looking back to check on kids in seat belts is going to cause more accidents.
Adult monitors?!?! They need prison guards. Armed.
I was a school board secretary when this was discussed in our district. I was floored for the “safety” reason given for deciding against seat belts on buses: the fear was that the kids would hit each other with the ends of the seatbelts, and overall, that would be more dangerous.
They should tell the kids to sit down, shut up, and keep their seatbelts on or the driver will pull out a cute little bunny and blow it’s head off with a saturday night special. But that’s just my opinion.
This is Government Hypocrisy 101.
The booster seat legislation shows that the discussion has gone well beyond mandating that kids have to wear seat belts. Now they have to wear a particular kind of device.
Contrast this with government operations. They don’t want to put kids in seat belts.
Do as I say, not as I do.
Of course, there should be seat belts. The advantages are obvious. As for fires, it is not expensive to equip buses with much stronger gas tanks and fine-mist water spray fire suppresant systems. I know, gas floats on water; but mist systems are for quenching the fire, not drowning it. Mist systems work in serious fires.
School buses are ridiculous. We have all the new laws about how safe our cars must be, yet the buses for our kids are from 1940.
I am afraid to ride on or allow my children to ride on school buses because they don’t have seat belts. One wrong turn and anyone can go flying! Children should be trained as to how to properly use seat belts so that, in an emergency, they could release the belt and escape to safety. So many problems on buses could be avoided by just having the children seated with seat belts.
Have to agree, we do need better school bus safety.
Course we have educators focused on more pressing issues of protecting our children:
Save the Children!http://theflyoverzone.blogspot.com/2006/02/save-children.html
it might be a good thing to put seatbelts on school buses maybe not we should have a debat to see if school buses should have seat belts
WOW!!! HI!! I AGREE!!!
older kids might try to ruin the seatbelts which would be alot of money if they damage them.
I worked with one of the states CTDs and we were trying to get the disabled busses to come with seatbelts. We had to word it specifically so it did not include school busses to get it passed. The school bus companies or someone has successfully fought many attempts to get this kind of bill passed.
I believe it needs studied and probably implemented unless the study shows it would cause more harm than good. The state could review other states to see how they handle the issue and what problems or solutions those states had.
i hate seatbelts =(
i hate seatbelts =(