Ineffective and Unrealistic 

Seat Belts on Buses Still A Bad Idea

By Dave Arnold

On the morning of August 27, 2003, my co-workers and I sat down to celebrate a fellow custodian’s birthday. The joyful moment was suddenly transformed into a solemn occasion when we received news of a school bus accident in the neighboring school district of Vandalia, Illinois.

Several teachers where I work in Brownstown live in Vandalia. They scurried for their cell phones to learn if any of their children were on the bus. Thankfully, the accident occurred before their children had been picked up.

The bus, with 15 students aboard, had run off the road and down an embankment. It up ended and came to rest on its side. As the news developed, we learned that students were transported to various hospitals. The emergency care needed was more than our rural hospitals in this part of Southern Illinois could handle.

Our hearts sank when we learned that two students were in critical condition and had to be transported by helicopter to a hospital 75 miles away in Springfield. 

On August 29 we received the heartbreaking news that one of the two, a 14-year-old girl, had passed away. Before the young girl’s funeral had even been scheduled, several newspapers and radio programs commented that a large number of parents were demanding seat belts be installed on school buses.

Wrong Response

They believed that seat belts might have saved the young girl’s life. No one can say for sure if the girl would have lived if strapped to her seat, though many people, institutions and surveys do report that seat belts on school buses are a bad idea.

The death of a child is devastating and something that no one can prepare for. Still, I know of only one other incident of a child dying as a result of a public school bus accident where there was no other vehicle involved.

Seat belts on buses is a highly sensitive issue. The debate will have to go deeper and further than newspaper editorials and TV commentating. I will voice my opinion against seat belts on buses in every way I can.

It’s important we all register our vote against seat belts on buses, especially at our statehouses and with our Congressional representatives. I think legislators will listen for two reasons.

Reaching Legislators

First, it’s near impossible to enforce seat belt use by students on a bus. Second, seat belts are expensive. Let’s take a closer look at these two points.

Who enforces?

I imagine that most people assume that securing 65 kids would be the bus driver’s job. Wrong. Few realize that a driver cannot see over the top of passenger seats. Drivers can inspect for seat belt use only by getting out of the driver’s seat and walking back to the passenger’s seat.

If this only took a minute, with an average of 65 students aboard, it would add more than an hour to the average bus route. Across America, the average bus route is presently 60 minutes long. If we were to make this a two hour trip, we would then have students spending 7 hours in a classroom and more than four hours on a bus.

Who pays?

A seat belt is a very simple but expensive item. It's not the materials or installation cost that is expensive. It's the liability insurance that costs a fortune. When a manufacturer produces a safety device, the consumer relies upon that safety device to protect them.
If it fails, then the manufacturer is liable. Huge lawsuits can be expected. Therefore, the manufacturer must carry expensive liability insurance. This inflates the cost of the product to more than $200 per passenger at the very least.

Expensive and Unrealistic

Hence, we would have to add about $13,000 to the cost of an average school bus. Add to that the cost of an aid to ride each bus and buckle students in. This is certain to be more than most any schools can afford.

If I believed that seat belts on a school bus would save lives in an accident, I would fight hard for immediate installation. Many of us in the education community suffer along with the parents of the girl who died last August.

If there was anything we could do to make sure something like that never happens again, I know we would. Seat belts on buses, unfortunately, are not the answer.

(Dave Arnold, a member of the Illinois Education Association, is head custodian at Brownstown Elementary School in Southern Illinois.)

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NEA or its affiliates.