Seat Belts on School Buses

This issue has been frowned upon many times, which leaves the question,

is it safer for children to wear seatbelts on buses, or not?

Pro's include:
-keeps the kids from rummaging around
-less distraction and worry for the bus driver.
-seat belts are proven to be safer when wearing them.

-not suitable because of construction of bus.
-if there was an accident, children wouldn't know how to get out, and
would be stuck.
-safer for the child without seat belts because of thick padded seats
and small windows.

I think that it is safer without seat belts, but at the same time, it
seems safer with them. It's a question that the government themselves
don't even know. So what do you think?

bizby40...

I appreciate you posting this reformatted.

I think it is probably a bit safer with them, but that it's
impractical. Bus rides would be twice as long if they had to ensure
every child buckled in. They couldn't squeeze three to a seat on
crowded days. It wouldn't do anything to protect against flying
backpacks.

I think that with busses being big and yellow, very visible, keeping
off main roads when possible, employing only drivers with clean
records, and so forth, that busses are much safer than cars, and that
seat belts wouldn't make all that much of a difference.

But then, I haven't looked into it really, and am open to being
convinced otherwise by people with real data.

Ericka Kammerer...

The studies I've seen suggest that it is significantly
safer for your kid to get to school on a bus without seat belts
than in your car with appropriate seat belts or child restraints.
Of course, that doesn't answer the question of whether a bus
is safer with or without seat belts, but it does set a sort of
threshold on how much money and effort you'd want to spend
putting seat belts on a bus.
Other cons that weren't mentioned:

- danger of flying unattached seat belts (whether propelled by
an accident or unruly children)
- dangers of seat belts that are used improperly (they
can cause more damage if not used properly), especially
since it's hard to image how they could use 3-point
harnesses and buses generally have to accommodate many
different sizes of kids, from kindergarteners to seniors
in high school

Best wishes,
Ericka

stonej...

Impractical on another level - cost. It would be very expensive to
equip seat belts on buses
and some school districts have a great many buses and not enough money
to cover it.