Retrofitting school buses with seat belts would save approximately 2 lives per year. And it makes safety belt use a habit for children, which makes it more likely they’ll buckle up in cars.īut should existing school buses be retrofit with seat belts? It would reduce the likelihood of injury, especially in bus rollover crashes. Should new school buses be built with 3-point safety harnesses? School buses are the safest mode of transportation for children- even without seat belts.Īlthough nearly 500 children and teens die each year in car accidents during school travel hours, only about four are killed while riding school buses during those same hours, according to a 2014 report from the NHTSA (PDF). #3: School buses are actually much safer than other vehicles. That is still too many preventable deaths.īut compare it to the 433 school-age pedestrians who were killed in 2014.Ĭhildren are much more likely to be struck and killed by a school bus than to die inside of it. Is pedestrian safety infrastructure a better investment for schools than seat belts in buses?Ībout six school-age children die in school bus crashes as passengers every. This was a tragic incident, and unfortunately, there are many more like it. It put pedestrians-including school children- in danger every single day. That kid had to walk across a 5-lane street that was so poorly designed there was no safe place to cross. He had a serious brain injury, and is permanently disabled. She stated that there’s more than $600,000 a day in fines in Washington State that could used to pay for seat belts.Īssuming that figure is accurate, and, that money from the shockingly high number of stop-paddle violations is available for safety improvements, is seat belt installation the best use of those funds? #2: Many more children could be saved by safer routes to school.Ī few years ago, I represented a preteen kid who got hit by a van while he was walking home from school. “In May this last year, 2016, there were over 1,500 violations in one day,” McCabe told a reporter. Gina McCabe (R-Goldendale) suggested that the safety belt installation could be funded by fines from citations for passing school buses. The state of Washington has 200 school districts. Olympia School District estimated that adding 3-point safety belts (like those in cars) would cost $10,000 per bus. Here’s why school buses don’t have seat belts. Others would require all existing school buses to be retrofitted with safety belts. In Washington, a proposed bill would mandate that all new school buses have a safety belt for each bus rider. Now, 18 states-including Washington-are considering laws requiring schools to add safety belts to their buses. A school bus in Chattanooga, Tennessee, slammed into a tree last November.
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