Deadly Tenn. crash renews debate about seat belts on school buses
The deadly crash in Tennessee has renewed the debate about seat belts on school buses.At least five children were killed Monday when the bus flipped and wrapped around a tree. The driver is facing charges. The top government safety regulator calls school buses “the safest way for children to get to and from school.”
Deadly accidents involving a school bus are rare and children on board the buses are among the least likely to be killed in such a crash, reports CBS News correspondent Kris Van Cleave. Still the government’s top safety regulator says all school buses need seat belts. Only a few states require that, and crash experts say in many cases those restraints could be improved.
The head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says three-point seat belts like the ones in your car that go across the shoulder and waist should be on every school bus.
“We know that seat belts will save lives if we put one for every kid on every school bus,” NHTSA administrator Mark Rosekind said.
But there’s no federal mandate. Six states require seat belts on school buses, but only California meets the NHTSA recommendation. Rosekind said his agency has been weighing whether to mandate belts on buses for four decades.
“We’re not denying that this is going to be a challenge but we are looking at everything from research to funding to figure out how to help everybody nationwide get their kids even safer,” Rosekind said.
NHTSA estimates four children die every year in large school bus crashes. It believes seat belts would reduce those deaths by half.
A seat belt manufacturer’s rollover test shows the impact of a crash on unbuckled children.
“The belts are good and they are certainly very good in a rollover where you might be ejected if you didn’t have that belt,” independent crash investigator Ken Saczalski said. He said two-point seat belts that only go over a student’s lap and are used in school buses in several states may not protect as well in side-impact crashes like one in Florida where a child died.
“The seat pivots over and this belt ramps up over the crest and into the abdominal region,” Saczalski said.
“So this seatbelt becomes a weapon when that seat starts to move?” Van Cleave asked.
“Exactly, yeah,” Saczalski said.
Last year, NHTSA predicted it would cost between $7,300 and $10,000 to retrofit each bus with seat belts. With an estimated half-million school buses in service, the cost would be in the billions of dollars.
Rosekind suggested new buses could come off the assembly line standard with seat belts.
“The manufacturers could do this on their own starting now,” Rosekind said.
Because of the cost involved, NHTSA said it could take up to a decade or more – if ever – to get a regulation in place. The NTSB believes three-point seat belts would improve seat belt safety.
