Why doesn't our public busses have seat belts?

Beck

My best guess is for safety's sake. (sound crazy?)
Picture this: The bus crashes and goes into a pond. There are kids, elderly, unconscious people, etc. Water starts to rise. Imagine all the panicking people just wanting to get off that bus. No belts? No problem. Grab the closest person in need and get going. Belts? Elderly people will fumble, losing precious time, small children will be unable to get themselves out (hopefully their parents are still conscious - if not, other people lose time by trying to unbuckle the kids and save them), anyone who is unconscious could be slumped over the buckle making it harder for help to save them....or instead of water, imagine a fire breaks out in the middle of the bus....
Acutally, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to know so after just finishing that last paragraph I researched it and came up with the following quote: (it refers to school buses but the general idea is the same I do beleive)...Oh and ha ha! I was right! They mention that "In an emergency seatbelts could hinder evacuation". Read on if you will...

Perspectives on the Issue

Seat-belts were designed for cars, and have saved thousands of lives. School buses are designed with safety (but not seat-belts) in mind; they are not built like cars. Buses are much larger, higher and heavier than other vehicles on the road, so they have a body-on-frame design. For seat-belts to enhance rider safety, the bus body would have to be completely re-engineered with seat-belts integrated at the design stage.

Beyond the engineering problems someone would need to ensure the seat-belts are used, adjusted properly between uses by small and larger children, and repaired when damaged. In an emergency, seat-belts could hinder evacuation. Young children should not be placed in a situation where they must become responsible for their own safety.

School bus standards vary between countries. In Canada, almost 40 federal standards apply to the design and construction of school buses. These standards combine to make Canadian school buses an extremely safe mode of transportation. A school bus does not have safety belts like a passenger vehicle, but it does have many passive safety systems engineered into it.

Julie H

Save pathetic lawsuits.... Could never know real answer to if people were wearing them in the first place

waylandbill

There are many reasons for this. On a school bus, they omit them because children had been found to be using them as weapons. With the tall padded seats, the likelihood of injury in a fender bender is not very likely.

In city situations, public transportation buses are likely to be going a low speed, which lowers the need for them.

The fact that the driver has been trained to drive such a large vehicle safely will lower the necessity of them coupled with the fact that it is the driver's profession.

Of course accidents happen, but compare those to the number of buses on the roads, and the liklihood of having a serious injury from the lack of a seat belt is rather low in comparison to the number of accidents from two passenger cars.

lightningfastfords

that's the ten million dollar question they should have em, just like the rest, i don't see the difference why i have no idea probably money

oddless

Because buses are inherintly safer (by design) than passenger cars and are designed to minimize injury to occupants in the event of an accident. If you look at the numbers, there are far fewer fatalities involving buses than cars... and most of the fatalities occur outside the bus, not inside (people getting hit by buses, cars passing parked buses and hitting pedestrians, etc).

bond

Not required by law.

westoz

extra cost extra weight and low injury likely-ness

Chris

Because adding seat belts is an extra expense that isn't needed.

Simmy

It's cheaper not to installed them. They figure if the bus does crash your less likely to get as hurt as you could in a regular sized car.

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