Texas Governor Signs School Bus Occupant Restraint Bill into Law

State becomes second in nation requiring lap/shoulder restraints and first for all charter vehicles used in school activity trips

Ryan Gray | Senior Editor

AUSTIN, Texas — Two high school athletes killed and 12 others injured in a March 2006 charter bus crash prompted their school district to require three-point occupant restraints, and state legislators followed suit, but funding remained a question.

Although it was a motorcoach carrying Alicia Bonura, 15, Ashley Brown, 17, and the rest of their West Brook High School soccer teammates that fateful Wednesday, an ensuing parental campaign brought attention to overall school bus safety. As a result, the Beaumont Independent School District passed a regulation last fall for mandatory lap/shoulder belt restraints in not only school buses but all vehicles chartered for school activity trips. Austin ISD also has a similar regulation.

“It’s been great,” said Clifton Guillory, Beaumont’s pupil transportation director. “We’ve got complete compliance. Everyone has bought into it. We don’t move the bus until all the kids have buckled up.”

That, along with the campaign led by Alicia and Ashley parents, was enough to convince state legislators to require all school districts to comply. The Senate vote was unanimous, and only six of 138 representatives voting in the House dissented.

Gov. Rick Perry signed it into law at Beaumont ISD on June 8, making Texas only the second in the nation to pass a law requiring three-point systems in large school buses, following California’s lead, and the first requiring the restraints for all other charter buses used to transport students. The latter development is a daunting one to the motorcoach industry’s national organization.

“We’re very concerned that the legislature is mandating seat belts when NHTSA has yet to determine if seat belts can be applied in a motorcoach application,” said Kent Pressley, the vice president of industry relations for the United Motorcoach Association in Alexandria, Va.

A spokesman for the bill said the legislative process was not an easy one, despite overwhelming support in Austin.

“We had a lot of fights with (some school bus industry professionals),” said Ian Randolph, an aid to bill sponsor Sen. Eddie Lucio. “They say buses already are safe. We agree, but that doesn’t convince the legislature that something else needed to be done, that a new technology has come along that supplements compartmentalization.”

NHTSA officially announced in the Federal Register that it would hold a school bus seat belt summit this month in Washington, D.C., to discuss the feasibility of three-point occupant restraints in school buses.

Meanwhile, occupant restraint funding in Texas remained up in the air, despite pledges from the sponoring senator that he is agressively going after the money.

Funding Makes the Mandate
The law specifically says all school buses purchased after Sept. 1, 2010 will be required to come equipped with the occupant restraints, but it will only be enforced on school districts if the state legislature appropriates funding, said a spokesperson for the bill. Louisiana passed a law in 1999 requiring two-point lap belts in school buses, but the legislature there has never appropriated the funds.

“We have to find the money,” explained Randolph. “(Seat belts) won’t be mandated if the funding is not there. There’s no burden on the school districts.”

Much confusion centered on a fiscal note of $177 million to pay for the lap/shoulder belts. Randolph said the real figure will probably be closer to $17 million, reflecting both the difference in the purchase prices of new school buses with and without the seat belts plus any eventual, reduced industry manufacturing costs.

“It’s an economy of scale. Now that California has (also) done this, buses prices might come down,” Randolph added.

Across the board, representatives from the three major school bus manufacturers said their companies are prepared to offer customers any type of bus, whether it is equipped with three-point systems, two-point systems or none at all.

“We continue to monitor the seat belt situation in all states,” said one OEM rep. “We have excellent solutions for all and have been manufacturing buses for quite some time using all three solutions.”

The quoted costs for the occupant restraints are between $7,000 for conventional school buses and $10,000 per transit-style bus. Multi-function school activity buses are included.

One idea being bandied about the state capital to secure school bus funding is adding a $1 surcharge to motor vehicle tickets issued for failing to buckling up, but Randolph stressed, “It’s just an idea.”

Additionally, the bill reads that each school-chartered bus, including motorcoaches, contracted for use by a school district must be equipped with the 3-point restraint system by Sept. 1, 2011, but, again, only if the state legislature appropriates the funds.

The legislation includes a section that allows school districts to accept donations of the three-point belts from private third parties or money toward the purchase of the restraint systems.

Beaumont ISD’s Guillory, a 21-year industry veteran who was instrumental along with the fathers of Bonura and Brown in getting the bill before the legislature, said 30 Thomas Built Saf-T-Liner HDX transit-style school buses of his total fleet of 225 bus fleet were equipped. In addition, they each have DVD screens that play safety videos similar to those on commercial airliners.

And for the seating capacity issue?

“When you sit three to a seat, the outer kid is not on seat, and they no longer have compartmentalization,” said Guillory, who added it is district policy to never put more than 65 kids on a bus. “The high school kids are too big. Those seats are designed for a third- or fourth-grade girl. Anywhere from kindergarten through fifth, you put that many kids on a bus, they will not be protected by compartmentalization. This takes care of everyone.”