For Now, Agency Focused
on Side-Impact Protection

OTTAWA, Ontario (Dec. 11, 2007) — Canada may eventually adopt seat belt requirements for school buses, but researchers are most focused on enhancing side-impact protection, according to representatives from Transport Canada.

The comments came as the Canadian transport authority requested a correction to a newspaper article suggesting the agency had a timetable for an introduction of seat belt regulation.

Jessie Chauhan, senior communications officer for Transport Canada, indicated the agency would consider developing a seat belt rule similar to the recently proposed rule for lap/shoulder belts in the United States only if their own investigation found the proposal would not compromise unbelted and incorrectly-belted passengers.

The proposed testing would take anywhere between several months to a year.

Present sled testing, however, is for side-impact protection "since this is the crash mode associated with greatest number of injuries." The testing is not, as the paper reported, for higher seat backs and seat belts.

"Specifically, Transport Canada is conducting tests to identify opportunities for the introduction of energy absorbing materials in the sidewalls," Chauhan wrote in an e-mail.

According to Chauhan, the reporter indicated he would issue a correction of several points in the article, which originally appeared in the Montreal Gazette, but was later picked up by CanWest News Service.

However, the reporter said he would not emend a statement about the feasibility of seat belt regulation on motorcoaches. Transport Canada objected to the reporter’s statement that regulation for seat belts on motorcoaches was "less likely than for school buses."

Rather, this potential regulation would depend on the feasibility of introducing a seat belt system that does not compromise the existing protection provided by compartmentalization, Chauhan wrote.