Lap Belt Measures Remain a Contentious Issue

By Ryan Gray | Senior Editor

SPRINGFIELD , Ill. - A legislator who proposed a bill that would require two-point lap seat belts on state school buses says the non-funded mandate is well worth any additional monetary costs if it saves the life of but one child per year. Still, others are questioning the logic.

Rep. Lou Lang, a Democrat from Skokie , said he drafted House Bill 187 to balance the costs of adding the two-point belts to the state's fleet, keeping in mind current occupancy numbers.

"Lap-shoulder belts reduce seating," he said. "I drew this up for its best chance to pass."

The bill would add to seat belt anchorage specifications currently relegated to the school bus driver seating position and would require rooftop hatches on school buses. Currently, local school districts choose whether to require seat belts. Chicago Public Schools, for example, already requires lap belts on all school buses.

Lang explained that the added cost and the reduction of seat positions associated with lap-shoulder belts, estimated at around 17 percent below current capacity, would preclude the necessary amount votes in the General Assembly to pass the legislation. When asked about a National Transportation Safety Board study that indicates two-point lap belts are more apt to cause head, neck and abdominal injuries than three-point lap-shoulder belts, he said that "every major medical association is behind" the concept of some form of seat belt on school buses, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatricians, and the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. But, he later admitted, those organizations have only said that they support some kind of seat belt on school buses, not lap-belts specifically.

"The whole key there is maybe. There is no conclusive evidence one way or another," he said on the safety record of lap belts vs. lap-shoulder belts. But he added: "It's very clear the three-pointers are safer, but I don't think I could pass that bill."

Meanwhile, others say ambiguity clouds the issue and is a main reason similar proposals introduced by Lang over the better part of the past two decades have all died.

"We've asked him for a better description and to define actually what he wants so we can make a fair determination or value of it but he never will," said Greg Bonnett, president of Sunrise Transportation, which offers special and regular education services in Chicago and surrounding areas. "Any time you talk about safety who wants to say anything bad about it? But is a two-point bill going to be helpful? Who's going to pay the millions and millions of dollars?"

On the Floor
Currently the Illinois bill is up for vote in the House Transportation Committee. If it makes the Senate floor and passes, it would apply to all newly purchased school buses manufactured after the date the law goes into effect. Lang added that cost is a non-issue because it would be absorbed by the manufacturers.

"School bus manufacturers need to compete, just like auto makers," Lang said, citing a market response to the 1986 federal law mandating three-point belts in passenger vehicles.

Research within the industry is inconclusive. David Hillman, director of Bus Marketing with International Truck and Engine Corporation, said added costs are specification dependent and take into consideration the number of passengers and the type of seat belt employed. Regardless, the chassis manufacturer is waiting to see how the school bus safety landscape changes.

"Safety is the number one priority of (International subsidiary) IC Corporation, and we manufacture buses to meet the needs of our customers," he said. "Some customers want seat belts, others do not."

The bill quotes figures from the Illinois Board of Education that the minimum cost to add lap belts to a bus is approximately $1,065 for a 71-passenger bus, compared to $7,180 for lap-shoulder belts. The average cost of a conventional bus is $55,000 without the addition of lap or lap-shoulder belts. At press time, there were approximately 24,280 licensed school buses in Illinois .

Becky Watts, public information director for the Board of Education, said the agency does not take a stand on the bill one way or another.

"The agency remains neutral on the bill because the research on lap belts is mixed," she said, pointing to references made by the National School Bus Safety Coalition (NSBSC) to four studies from various educational entities in New York, and the University of California, Los Angeles' 1968 School Bus Passenger Protection research, Transport Canada crash tests and NHTSA's 1986 on School Bus Safety Belts.

The four New York studies did not delineate between lap belts and lap-shoulder belts and raised arguments with the UCLA, Transport Canada and NHTSA findings that indicated lap belts may increase injuries in school bus crashes.

"At this point we want to be very careful to do what's the very safest for the children," Watts added. "In anything you always have to go with the most cogent research there is."

She also said that the Board of Education is currently studying any costs that school districts would need to shoulder when purchasing new school buses equipped with lap belts. HB 187 does not appropriate funding to support school districts if this law is enacted.

But an anonymous source with knowledge of the issue questioned whether the lap belts would actually increase safety. Citing an August crash in Vandalia , Ill. , where a school bus with 15 students onboard plunged 15 feet into steep ravine, the source said an older student was able to get out and summon help while the bus driver assisted other students. The source also pointed to the federal studies that indicate lap belts could cause neck and abdominal injuries in the case of a crash.

"I firmly believe if we had seat belts on that bus we would have had more fatalities. There (are) pluses and minuses," the source said.

Demonstrating the polarization of the issue, Lang cited the same accident as a reason for implementing the two-point lap belts.

The source added that the bill fails to address the need for added supervision onboard the school bus.

"It's not just about the cost but who's going to be responsible to see that (the lap belts) are used properly," said the source. Illinois only mandates bus aides for special needs transportation.