Seat Belt Debate Best Seen
Through Eyes of Experience

Ryan Gray | Senior Editor

A vital question to ask regarding 3-point lap/shoulder belts on school buses is, "What does real-world experience say?"

Most in the industry will agree that the issue is as polarizing a topic as they come, and especially before the eyes of the general public with children riding the yellow bus to and from school. Adults have lived with mandatory seat belt laws in passenger vehicles for the past 20 years, and buckling up has been ingrained in the minds of their children basically since birth. Yet the issue becomes dicey when it's suggested school buses, widely accepted among all transportation experts to be the safest vehicle on the road, should incorporate the occupant restraints.

School bus security as a whole remains a hot topic, as do fuel prices, driver retention and operator liability. But ask transporters if they either oppose or favor the restraint systems and the arguments can reach a fever pitch.

Recently one reader, a school bus driver, questioned why a recent School Transportation News article about legislation in Kansas' bill (see page 18 of the February 2006 issue) did not report the opposing view. Perhaps that one phone call shed more light on the polarizing issue than 100 articles either for or against the seat belts combined.

The article in question neither supported the restraint systems nor favored them; instead, a straight-forward news article that merely reported the new legislation and the provisions contained within suddenly, to this reader at least, took on the perceived characteristics of a one-sided story because it did not mention the opposition's viewpoint. In reality, the reader wanted to see an editorial that backed his opinion that school buses are already as safe as can be.

In fact, School Transportation News regularly receives letters to the editor that are evenly split between school bus officials who back the lap/shoulder belts and those who feel the money is better spent addressing other more vital school bus safety issues, like driver training and the loading/unloading zone. And what about those kids forced off the bus because of reduced seating capacity?

Differing Viewpoints

On one side you have progressivism, and on the other a legitimate concern for the operational health of school districts.

Ron Kinney, marketing director for Laidlaw Educational Services in California, said the response to lap/shoulder belts in San Francisco Unified School District, a client of the school bus contractor, has so far been positive, with drivers and students alike buckling up "and they don't make a big deal about it."

"The key really is people have to consider in-use management when they're thinking about ordering them," Kinney said. "Let's just deal with this. Let's manage this thing. Parents want it. It's time people in our industry understand that."

Student Transport Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of the exclusive private school Woodward Academy in College Park, Ga., has used lap/shoulder belts on all 34 school buses for the past three years. Ed Best, Student Transport's executive director, said he has seen drastic improvements in student safety beyond the 2-point lap belts that were used the previous two decades.

The exclusive private school transports approximately 1,100 pre-kindergarten through 12 th grade students each school day on three routes per bus from around the greater Atlanta area for a total of about 650,000 square-miles traveled per year. Before implementing C.E. White contour and bench seats with the lap/shoulder belts, Best said students, especially the larger ones, would suffer head and back injuries during rear- and front-end collisions.

"The kids would always bend at the waist and incur damage from bouncing off the seats in front of them," he recalled. "The 2-point system didn't allow for maximum safety."

Because the height of the 2-point belt equipped seat would not always allow bracing the students' shoulders and heads above the seat, Student Transport began testing the lap-shoulder belt variety and quickly discovered marked improvements in keeping the students in their seat.

"We found that if there was a rear-end or front-end collision the seat would hold the kids in place with the 3-point belt," he said. "It wouldn't allow kids to move forward and hit their head on the seat in front of them."

At this writing 19 school buses were equipped with the lap/shoulder belts at a cost of about $15,000 per vehicle to install. Best said costs included installing a new reinforced floor, adding oversized luggage racks above the seats and raising the school bus roof about 2 inches to accommodate head room.

Woodward Academy immediately implemented driver training on how to use the seat belts and how to adjust them. All school bus routes now undergo emergency evacuation three times a school year, and all drivers attend a two-week training program prior to the start of classes. Each month the drivers also undergo accident training, and "two to three" days of classes are mandatory after each and every school bus incident. Best also said Student Transport also utilizes the Bus Vision onboard surveillance system to monitor driver and student behavior.

But there is no guarantee the lap/shoulder restraints will save all lives. In fact, Best admitted that the system could hamper evacuation efforts in certain crashes.

"When a bus turns over in water that's another story, there's no guarantee," he said. He added that none of Woodward Academy's regular or special needs routes pass bodies of water, but field trips remain a concern.

Newport-Mesa Unified School District near the coast of Southern California 's Orange County is one of more than 1,000 school districts faced with adhering to a state law requiring all newly purchased small and large school buses to have the 3-point belts. The district received its first five seat belt-equipped buses at the end of March.

"We've been avoiding them as long as we could," said Transportation Director Pete Meslin. "From all the statistics I've seen it's going to be virtually impossible to make the bus safer. Then there's the seating capacity issue."

Meslin said he believes seating will be reduced by one-third, meaning Newport-Mesa will have to buy a third more buses to keep up.

"How are those kids going to get to school?" he asked.

While the school district serves the affluent coastal communities of Newport Beach and Costa Mesa, a large segment of the student body resides in medium- and lower-class fringe neighborhoods, which presents "an administrative nightmare" because of perceived preferential treatment.

"I better not put the quote 'safe buses' with the rich kids," he added. "Your average fleet will not be replaced in 25-30 years so you'll have some with and without. We need to hear the logic. Give me numbers that prove to me it's safer or prove it's not safer."

But Laidlaw's Kinney said he doesn't believe school bus passenger numbers will be reduced by even 20 percent. And he said he feels passenger numbers should be reduced anyway.

" When you put 20 kids in a classroom with an aid but then you put 84 on a bus, are you kidding me?" he said. "Drivers' aren't prepared to deal with these kids."

Warwick Valley Central School District about 90 miles northwest of New York City is completing its second year evaluation of C.E. White seats with retractable lap/shoulder belts in what the local dealer told Transportation Director Bob Zeller was the first International school bus with the restraint system. Zeller said seats accommodate three-regularly sized adults and, as a result, the bus' n-use capacity reduced only from 30 students to 24. While the figures appear to support a position from NASDPTS that each school district across the nation operates differently and must evaluate in-use school bus seating on an individual basis, Zeller said justifying the added costs remains problematic.

On one hand he said drivers have realized improvements in student behavior, and the seat belts have proven both durable and easy to maintain. Still cost is an issue for the fleet of 83 buses that transport 5,200 students each school day to 41 area schools.

"It's very difficult with today's tight budgets to justify any increase in your bus purchases, especially because of driver shortages. We have to start looking at what's best for the drivers we have, and when new ones come in, we need to make their jobs as easy as possible because of the student management angle. The state does leave it up to districts to enforce usage. If kids aren't going to wear them, is it just a cost that is wasted?"

Source: School Transportation News, May 2006. All rights reserved.