Why isn't there seat belts on my 4 year old school bus?

Life is good

I drive a 2008 Thomas school bus. As the driver I have a three point seat belt and that is the only seat belt on the bus. On principle I do not agree with that arrangement. I personally believe that all occupants should be belted in. I have been wearing seat belts (without exception) since they were offered on cars.

However, on the practical side, I have to agree with the 'no seat belt' policy for the following reasons.

1 - If I am incapacitated in an accident who is going to unbelt 48 students; and some buses can carry even more students than that!

2 - what driver can stop the bus every 5 minutes and do a complete seat belt check to see if all belts are done up and, indeed, positioned properly. Remember; some buses have a 70 student capacity.

3 - If there is a fire onboard there will be insufficient time to get all the students out of their belts and off the bus.

4 - school bus seats are made of deformable materials and absorb impact very well.

5 - I wear a seat belt primarily to enable me to remain in control of the bus in emergency avoidance maneuvers plus the fact that I have no barriers to prevent me from being thrown through a picture window sized windshield. My students are surrounded by crash padding.

Although my particular bus has seat belt mounting points built in it is highly unlikely that we will see seat belts installed for a very long time. If the taxpayers want to hire two bus monitors to ride every school bus in North America full time I would welcome it. Until then the status quo will have to suffice.

Vipassana

School buses rarely, if ever, have seat belts.

And, no, they shouldn't. I grew up riding buses without them. Millions of kids have grown up with out them. The percentage of children injured in school bus accidents, is so marginal as to not even be a topic of discussion.

Quit frankly, if they were truly necessary, they would be required.

http://www.ncsbs.org/testimonies/seat_belt_background.htm

And there's an article explaining it for you. Ultimately, it boils down to cost, versus safety. The cost is substantial, to add seat belts to all buses. The increase in safety? Not substantial.

This gets brought up anytime a kid gets injured in a bus accident; because the parent ignores the several hundred, and even thousand trips that the child has made in the bus, and NOT gotten injured. It's called the recency effect. You care about what most recently happened. Not the history of it.

ad59

Why don't you ask the school transportation office for this kind of serious question where you need a concrete answer? Yes, there should be a seat belt, problem is to enforce that your 4 years old is buckled up.

Patrick W

why didn't you ask when you bought it? only newer buses have them and you don't have to have them installed. I'm sure as the driver, you have one right?

Vicky S

No. Theyre more trouble than theyre worth for kids.

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