This morning, the Los Angeles Times published an article online titled "School bus in Boyle Heights collision one of hundreds lacking seat restraints" that made me stop as soon as I saw the headline. After reading through the articles surrounding the release of the Alabama study earlier this week and working my way through the numerous reports published by the study group, I imagined that I would find mention of it in the LA Times article.

I am still digesting the results of the study, as I am sure many of you are. But, I was a little surprised by the conclusions. I am still relatively new to the industry, about to close out my fourth year covering the "school bus beat." I am still parentally-influenced in my opinions on seat belts, even though, logically, I understand how safe school buses are and the costs invovled with adding seat belts to every school bus. I guess that I was expecting to see something that would add to the efforts to mandate seat belts in every school bus, but this was not really the case.

If you have not had a chance, read through some of the conclusions of the study. I know the discussion is far from over, but the results of the study do seem to provide little help to anyone hoping to see seat belts in every school bus.