This still baffles me.

When I was in Ninth grade, the bus I was in had a head on collision with a Cadillac. The Cadillac's front end was entirely demolished and the bus only had a dinged bumper. None of the kids fell out of their seats. They build those things like tanks.

quote:

Originally posted by darthfuster:
This still baffles me.

how do you enforce it & what is the liability of 1 kid getting hurt because he wasn't buckled in? that was the argument 20 years ago when my dad was driving a school bus.

You can fit what, ~40 kids on a bus (2/seat). If you don't move until each & everyone of them buckles up, you're going to have a lot of kids late to class. Every. Single. Day.

Tubes

Tubes are the answer

If there is a fire, how are you going to unbuckle 50+ kids?

Because buses are some of the most over built vehicles on the road. The only vehicles that could even begin to harm one is a commercial vehicle like a dump truck or maybe a heavy pickup. Any passenger car would be destroyed hitting a bus.

See that imaginary line...stay inside and you are safe.

Twenty years ago, when I was riding the bus to high school, the buses had seat belts. Nobody used them, but they were there. That was in about as poor of a public school district as there is. I'd have a hard time believing they aren't standard equipment everywhere, and have been for decades.

Seems like any reason given has been addressed while imposing belt laws for cars.

quote:

Originally posted by Fenris:
If there is a fire, how are you going to unbuckle 50+ kids?

This, primarily.

Studies have shown that the risks greatly outweigh any benefits.

As previously noted, physics applies.

-Rob

Overall cost and requisite enforcement if they're installed?

Who would be held responsible if the insolent kid doesn't put it on and the bus ends up in a crash, the district, the driver, the parent?

Many of the answers here.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/road-safety/school-buses

School buses are among the safest methods of transportation. Roughly 7 times safer than passenger cars.

quote:

Originally posted by jcsabolt2:
Because buses are some of the most over built vehicles on the road. The only vehicles that could even begin to harm one is a commercial vehicle like a dump truck or maybe a heavy pickup.

Not to be flip, but a bus is no match for a train.

A couple of years ago in the next town over from me, a bus driver got caught at a light with the back end of the bus sticking over the track for the commuter rail line. The train that hit the bus launched it a dozen feet and tragically killed 7 kids.

I don't think they have seat belts on buses here, but to this day that town is fanatical about policing traffic at the crossings. Try to get across the tracks after the crossing lights start and it's a sure bet there'll be a cop waiting to give you a ticket. I've seen pedestrians get ticketed for running across after the lights went off.

Selt belts work in accidents.
School buses don't get in accidents.
School buses don't need seat belts.

As an example, .14 deaths per billion miles traveled by school bus compared to 5.75 deaths per billion miles travel by car or truck or 217 deaths per billion miles travel by motorcycle.

Only commercial US airlines are safer at .06 deaths per billion miles traveled. So why do airplanes have seatbelts? It's not like wearing your seatbelt is going to save you in an unplanned landing.

link

Newer school buses in the Austin areas have seat belts.

quote:

Not to be flip, but a bus is no match for a train.

A couple of years ago in the next town over from me, a bus driver got caught at a light with the back end of the bus sticking over the track for the commuter rail line

Trains are one of the most frequent winners or physics contests, and certainly the reason it is drilled, I mean really drilled into drivers why they have to be cautious and obey rules at crossings.

The driver you mention didn't get "caught" on a track (unless an alien craft fell on the bus), they made choices that resulted in them parking the children they were responsible for in the path of an oncoming train. Without room to fully cross they should have sat parked patiently on the other side. Most everyone here would. Once in the crossing, and the bells go off, they should be plowing into/over cars to get their ass off the track. I would in my car, and that's without being responsible for a bus full of kids in my charge.

Choices - we all make them. In that case it just sounds like the driver was ill equipped to make the first ones, let alone the last.

Liability.

50 kids. 49 have their seat belts on. An accident happens, and that ONE kid without a belt gets a bloody nose. Parents sue school board for $20 million.

Even IF they had another adult on the bus with the express job of making sure everybody was belted, there would still be kids who refuse to buckle up just because they are kids (I know I would've rebelled just because I could have).

At least, this has always been my theory. . .

A number of years ago, while I was serving on the school board of a neighboring town, a bus driver was distracted by a kid wanting the music changed. The bus was stopped at a railway crossing with the door open - as it should. The only indication that it was a crossing was the old fashioned sign with the X.

The school bus driver changed the music and proceeded ahead. Unfortunately he did not verify the tracks were still clear and the bus was hit by a train, in the rear, as it drove forward. Maybe the music was too loud to hear the train.

2 kids were instantly killed due to broken necks. They were brothers sitting on the back seat.

Even though the chassis was separated from the rest of the bus, miraculously no one else was seriously hurt.

The poor bus driver had a momentary lapse and was forced to leave town. The father of the two bothers heard the crash and was first on the scene. He promised to kill the bus driver if he ever saw him again.

The settlement was $1,000,000 per child but I don't believe the family never healed.

It was a terrible, terrible thing. Seat belts wouldn't have saved those boys.

Mike

It's probably in the nhsta link but i'm too lazy to click it. In crash school we were told compartmentalization or something. It's designed to distribute crash forces.

These anecdotal stories are terrible but the fact of the matter is school buses, as a class of vehicles, have the lowest rate of accidents. Driving to work in the morning. What's worse than being stuck behind a school bus. Now the driver would have to sit there while the monitor ensures each and every kid is buckled before moving again. Then what happens when the little brats decide to unbuckle as they most certainly will?