Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced a notice of proposed rulemaking that would require three-point seat belts at all passenger seating positions in newly manufactured motorcoaches and the lap/shoulder belt systems for drivers of all motorcoach and school buses weighing more than 10,000 pounds.

The 89-page document seeks to amend FMVSS 208 on "Occupant Crash Protection" to include motorcoaches and school bus drivers and that all lap/shoulder belt anchorages and attachment hardware in motorcoaches meet FMVSS 210 that regulates the seat belts to withstand crash forces of 3,000 pounds applied simultaneously to the lap and torso of the belt assembly. The motorcoach seat belt systems would also need to accommodate a 6-year-old child all the way up to a 95th percentile adult male, be lockable for use with a child restraint system and be released by a push-button device.

Public comments on docket number NHTSA-2010-0112 are sought by Oct. 18, 2010.

Currently, federal regulations only dictate that either two-point lap belts or the lap/shoulder variety be used by motorcoach and school bus drivers, though most school buses on today's market already are equipped with lap/shoulders. According to the National Highway Traffic Administration, 40 percent of motorcoaches manufactured in 2010 have lap/shoulder belts in the driver seating position that already meet FMVSS 210.

For motorcoach passengers, NHTSA estimated that lap/shoulder belts would save between one and eight lives and prevent 144 to 794 injuries per year.

The NPRM includes information on potential costs to the motorcoach industry. NHTSA calculated that lap/shoulder belts could result in a additional cost of approximately $12,900 per vehicle and a total annual, national fleet cost of $25.8 million based upon the approximately 2,000 new motorcoaches sold each year. The per vehicle cost is broken down to a cost of about $9,900 for adding the lap/shoulder belt equipped seats to a 54-passenger coach and $3,000 for reinforcing the coach floor and changing the seat anchorages.

There is also a potential increased cost tied to increased fuel consumption, as the seat belts and vehicle upgrades could add an additional 161 pounds to 269 pounds for each vehicle, which could result in another $800 to $1,800 spent per vehicle each year on additional fuel.

In all, motorcoach seat belts could result in nearly $30 million in costs to the industry. Meanwhile, NHTSA the annual benefits in reduced number of passenger deaths and injuries and associated costs could be as much as $130 million a year. If a quarter of motorcoach passengers wear the safety restraints, the industry could break even.

While NHTSA ruled two years ago in October on lap/shoulder belts for school buses, requiring them only for newly-manufactured smaller Type A school buses starting next fall and issuing voluntary standards for installing them in new large school buses, the NPRM pointed out that motorcoaches were responsible for eight times more fatalities in 2008 than occurred in school buses. Rollover crashes and ejection of passengers is a much bigger problem in motorcoaches due to vehicle construction, which includes large picture windows that can pop out of place during a crash.

NHTSA added that the NPRM should not be construed to mean that the federal government is again considering a proposal to require lap/shoulder seat belts in large school buses, citing increased costs to school district and the potential that more students would be forced to rely on less safe modes of travel to and from school.

"NHTSA does not believe that passenger seat belts should be required on large school buses," the NPRM states. "Instead, the agency believes that local school transportation planners should be given the ability to analyze the transportation risks particular to their needs, and to decide whether they wish to incur the cost of purchasing large school buses equipped with passenger seat belts."

Still, NASDPTS cautioned in a statement today that the NPRM "could trigger invalid comparisons between school buses and motorcoaches relating to overall safety and lap-shoulder belts." NASDPTS added that school buses must comply with more stringent safety standards than do motorcoaches, which include compartmentalization, roof strength requirements and numerous additional safety features.