I saw at least a dozen small yellow schoolbuses as I drove to work on the Garden State Parkway, Highway 78 and the Pulaski Skyway into Jersey City this morning. (The second bus I saw was turning into my street as I waited to cross the intersection and got rather close to the front end of my car.) I had just put Charlie onto his schoolbus (actually a red 
minivan).
On Tuesday, May 9, a van flipped over on the Garden State Parkway. Four men (18 -19 years old) who are all developmentally disabled and are residents of the North Jersey Developmental Center, four staff members (including the driver) and a physical therapist were in the van. Two of the staff members and two of the young men have been hospitalized in critical condition, according to an article in the May 19th New York Times.
Only the driver and one person in the passenger seat were wearing seatbelts.
Under state law, passengers other than young children do not have to wear safety belts. Mr. Rogan added that the agency [New Jersey's Department of Human Services] was “looking into” whether its rules required seatbelts for the residents, who he said were developmentally disabled. The victims were strewn all across the embankment when emergency crews arrived. David Hough, the lead investigator for the State Police, said that it was the worst accident scene he had ever seen.
And New Jersey’s Department of Human Services is only “‘looking into’” whether residents of developmental centers should be wearing seatbelts now?
Mr. Winslow, all this information is more than helpful. I have to say, my son’s current schoolbus driver is amazing—always cheerful and projecting an air of (as is indeed the case) responsiblity and concern. My son got upset on the bus a few weeks ago and she handled it very smoothly. Thank you again—
Each day, about 440,000 public school buses transport 23.5 million children to and from school and school-related activities. These buses travel 4.3 billion miles each year. (Yes that’s billion)
The debate over whether school buses should be equipped with seat belts goes back to at least 1977, when NHTSA tightened school bus safety standards. At that time, following extensive research and analysis, NHTSA instituted “compartmentalization” as the primary means of occupant protection in large school buses: strong, well-padded, well-anchored, high-backed, evenly spaced seats. Think of it like a carton of eggs… each egg is in its own compartment.
The record is impressive: American students are nearly eight times safer riding in a school bus than with their own parents and guardians in cars. The fatality rate for school buses is only 0.2 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT) compared to 1.5 fatalities per 100 million VMT for cars.This impressive safety record is a result of the Department of Transportation’s requirements for compartmentalization on school buses. Moreover, the protective abilities of today’s school buses have been reaffirmed by two years of research.Yet, no matter how safe our children are on school buses, it is vitally important to constantly reassess existing safety measures.
Therefore, Congress requested that DOT investigate the safety value of installing safety belts on our nation’s school buses. 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. Any increased risks associated with the use of lap belts in small school buses are more than offset by preventing ejections. The use of the combination lap/shoulder belts could provide some benefit, unless misused. Lap/shoulder belts can be misused and NHTSA’s testing showed that serious neck injury and perhaps abdominal injury could result when lap/shoulder belts are misused.Other considerations, such as increased capital costs, reduced seating capacities, and other unintended consequences (like vandalism) associated with lap/shoulder belts could result in more children seeking alternative means of traveling to and from school. Given that school buses are the safest way to and from school, even the smallest reduction in the number of bus riders could result in more children being killed or injured when using alternative forms of transportation.
Currently their are 5 states that require seat belts to be installed on school buses, but not a single state requires the passengers to wear them.
You also have to think of the possibility of bus fires and buses that end up in water of some kind. In a fire a driver would not have time to unbuckle the small children, and what about the times when the driver is incapacitated from injury or unconcious? Also, if a bus is upside down there is too much pressure on the buckle to undo it.
Over the past 11 years, school buses have annually averaged about 26,000 crashes resulting in 10 deaths (that is only 10 per year) – 25 percent were drivers; 75 percent were passengers. A pretty fantastic record if you ask me. We will continue to seek to make the buses safer, but for now it looks like “compartmentalization” is the answer. I also am a school bus driver and will NOT have seat belts on my bus unless it becomes law.
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Same here in New Jersey is my supposition—required seatbelts for kids in private cars but there have been more than a few school buses that Charlie has ridden in without wearing a seatbelt. There are aides on the bus in some cases, but not always.
Here in Louisiana, we have a mandatory seat belt/child seat law, albeit one with limited teeth. But school busses, the vehicles with the most vulnerable passengers, are exempt. The “official” story recites safety studies saying that they aren’t needed for such a large vehicle. Some officials, however, are honest enough to admit that the real reason is the expense of fitting all of the busses.