Later this week, U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) plan to introduce a bill that would require lap/shoulder belts, stronger seats, anti-ejection glazing, stronger roofs, improved fire protection, commercial driver training and electronic on-board recorders with real-time capabilities on all buses. While the bill has not yet been published, a previous version specifically excluded school buses and transit buses and called for retrofitting existing fleets.

Both the American Bus Association and the United Motorcoach Association oppose the measure. The groups say they prefer a measure proposed by Rep. Bill Schuster (R-PA) (HR 1135) that would require the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to perform a study to determine what motorcoach safety requirements should be improved within the next three years. After finishing the study, the Department of Transportation would be required to prescribe standards for occupant protection that accounts for frontal, side and rear collisions, as well as rollovers, and provide standards for the same items the Sherrod-Hutchinson bill requires. The bill specifies consideration of retrofitting of this equipment, but does not require it.

On March 2, 2007, a motorcoach carrying 33 members of the Bluffton University baseball team from Ohio to a tournament in Florida overrode a bridge wall on a Georgia interstate and fell 19 feet. Five members of the team, the driver and his wife were killed. Seven others received serious injuries and 21 received minor injuries.

A subsequent National Transportation Safety Board investigation found the driver most likely mistook an interstate High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV)-only left exit ramp for an HOV through lane. Inadequate traffic control devices and the lack of adequate occupant protection contributed to the crash and its severity, NTSB found.

A separate 1999 NTSB investigation concluded that improved occupant restraint in motorcoaches would significantly reduce the risk to occupants in similar accidents. The NTSB asked the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration to require motorcoach bus occupant protection systems that retain passengers in their seats. In reviews from 2006, 2007 and 2008 of the recommendation, the NTSB determined this was a "Most Wanted" safety improvement and said the progress on the issue was "acceptable, moving slowly."

In a press release, Sen. Hutchinson noted that despite increased ridership and a lengthy list of motorcoach safety improvements suggested by the National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. Department of Transportation lacks the ability to implement passenger safety protections.

"Every year that Congress delays passage of this badly needed legislation, the lives of American passengers are placed at risk in accidents that should be prevented," she wrote.

The original Hutchinson-Brown bill introduced in 2007, was heard by the Senate Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety and Security during an oversight hearing on bus safety in September 2008 but did not get a formal vote.