Feds Spell Out New School Bus Safety Rules
An Egyptian flowers vendor stands in front of graffiti depicting president Hosni Mubarak as he waits for a customer in Cairo, Egypt, Thursday, May 31, 2012, two days before Mubarak is to hear the verdict on charges of corruption and complicity in killing protesters during last year's uprising. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil) / Amr Nabil
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters proposed new rules Monday to improve the safety of school bus seats and expand the use of shoulder belts, but she declined to order that all new buses include seat belts.
Peters rode a packed school bus to Morrisville Elementary School, among the first schools in the country to equip some of its new buses with seat belts, then said she wants to increase the height of seat backs on all school buses from 20 inches to 24 inches to help protect children during accidents.
Peters also proposed a new requirement for short school buses - the style more prone to rollover accidents - to begin using shoulder straps. For longer buses, however, she instead proposed allowing states the option of using federal highway safety funds to retrofit them with seat belts.
She promised no new money to cover those costs.
"We want school districts to make that decision," said Peters, noting that smaller buses don't carry as many students. "They'll make the decision about how to protect the most children within their areas."
A new bus with seat belts costs about $10,000 more than one without the devices, said Derek Graham, a transportation services official for North Carolina schools. North Carolina puts about 800 new buses on the road each year, meaning the seat belt buses would cost the state an additional $8 million each year.
The country has about 474,000 school buses, Peters said.
Schools have increasingly gone to higher seat backs. Peters said that taller children are prone to flying over the seats if the backs are too short.
"It's like putting an egg in an egg carton," she told Sarah Omwenga, a 7-year-old who sat next to Peters on her ride to Morrisville school.
They buckled up in the new bus retrofitted with tall seat backs.
Small buses, which already use lap belts, will have three years to begin equipping new buses with the shoulder style. School districts will have to begin using the taller seat backs on new buses one year after the rules are approved.
The department will decide whether to adopt the proposal after a 60-day public comment period.
© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Peters rode a packed school bus to Morrisville Elementary School, among the first schools in the country to equip some of its new buses with seat belts, then said she wants to increase the height of seat backs on all school buses from 20 inches to 24 inches to help protect children during accidents.
Peters also proposed a new requirement for short school buses - the style more prone to rollover accidents - to begin using shoulder straps. For longer buses, however, she instead proposed allowing states the option of using federal highway safety funds to retrofit them with seat belts.
She promised no new money to cover those costs.
"We want school districts to make that decision," said Peters, noting that smaller buses don't carry as many students. "They'll make the decision about how to protect the most children within their areas."
A new bus with seat belts costs about $10,000 more than one without the devices, said Derek Graham, a transportation services official for North Carolina schools. North Carolina puts about 800 new buses on the road each year, meaning the seat belt buses would cost the state an additional $8 million each year.
The country has about 474,000 school buses, Peters said.
Schools have increasingly gone to higher seat backs. Peters said that taller children are prone to flying over the seats if the backs are too short.
"It's like putting an egg in an egg carton," she told Sarah Omwenga, a 7-year-old who sat next to Peters on her ride to Morrisville school.
They buckled up in the new bus retrofitted with tall seat backs.
Small buses, which already use lap belts, will have three years to begin equipping new buses with the shoulder style. School districts will have to begin using the taller seat backs on new buses one year after the rules are approved.
The department will decide whether to adopt the proposal after a 60-day public comment period.
Popular on CBSNews.com
- Bridge collapse blamed on tractor-trailer 219 Comments
- Washington state bridge collapses 20 Photos
- Best U.S. beaches 2013 10 Photos
- No fatalities in I-5 bridge collapse in NW Wash. 137 Comments
- Boy Scouts approve plan to accept openly gay boys 988 Comments
- Earthquake, multiple aftershocks jolt Californians
- Port Authority releases photo of One WTC workers at dizzying heights
- Kansas reporters run for tornado shelter during newscast
As we all know, freedom isn''t free in this country. Therefore, in the wake of our successful fundraising event of November 5th, in which we all came together to raise $4.2 million dollars for Ron Paul''s campaign, we''ve set yet another date for an even bigger fundraiser. This one will take place during on December 16th: a very important date for people who love freedom and hate tyranny to ring the Liberty Bell, and let our sold-out, globalist, political ****** and their mainstream media enablers know that good Americans are mad as hell, and that we''re not going to take it anymore. December 16th is the 224th aniversary of The Boston Tea Party: an act of protest by the American colonists against the tyranny of Great Britain where the Sons of Liberty boarded British ships and dumped crates of tea overboard into Boston Harbor. It was a key event which helped to spark the American Revolution, and we hope this event will, likewise, add additional spark to our own 21st Century political revolution to restore peace, prosperity and freedom to our Republic by helping elect a President whose record of adherance to The Constitution is unmatched by anyone in American politics. Please join us this December 16th for the largest one-day political donation event in history. Our goal is to bring together 100,000 people to donate $100 each, creating a one day donation total of $10,000,000. The time to act is now. The time for Ron Paul is NOW! TeaParty07.com
-- No more meddling in other country''s political affairs
-- No more aggressive military actions overseas
-- No more torture prisons
-- No more pseudo-wars like the "War on Drugs"
-- No more IRS and unconstitutional income taxes
-- No more Federal Reserve (the group of private banks which owns our government)
-- No more erosion of Social Security to pay for militarization
-- No more U.N. (one world government) participation
-- No more NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO or GATT (globalist trade cartels)
-- No more North American Union (loss of U.S. sovereignty)
-- No more federal gun control laws
-- No more illegal aliens pouring-in over our country''s borders
-- No more illegal aliens allowed to roam freely in our streets
-- No more national ID cards (Real ID Act)
-- No more government invasion of your privacy
-- No more federal Laws which force you to take unwanted injections
-- No more federal Laws which are not authorized by The Constitution
-- No more federal erosion of State sovereignty
-- No more unlimited federal government
They don''t call him "Dr. No" for no reason. The Doctor is in! Find-out what CBS hides from you, and join us in this 21st Century political revolution at ronpaul2008.com
"Those who expect to reap the blessing of freedom must undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
- Thomas Paine
"Ron Paul doesn''t represent your Father''s school of political thought. He represents your Founding Fathers."
- Me
I am glad they are increasing the height of the seat backs. Should help prevent injuries. I think most kids are getting used to seat belts so putting them on buses may be a good idea now.
My fellow Americans need to open their eyes to the fact that our Republic, along with The Constitution upon which it was founded, is being flushed-down the toilet by our nations'' bought and paid for politicians and media. While the Oligarchs warn and incite fear in the sheeple about the prospect of terrorism, they at the same time leave our borders wide open, and then conduct illegal wars overseas that do nothing but incite the terrorism which their Orwellian Laws like the Patriot Act and the John Warner Defense Authorization Act pretend to protect us from. Wake up America! It''s not about protecting you from terrorism, or Global Warming, or any of that other fear-mongering garbage the sold-out, mainstream media feeds you 24/7. It''s about feeding the bankers and the military industrial complex, and facilitating the global elite''s ability to ratchet-down control over the American people, placing us into a total control grid where they can surveille, track and control everywhere we go and everything we do. It''s the groundwork for tyranny. It''s the New World Order plan of Bush, Clinton, Edwards, McCain, Giuliani, et.al., being executed quite beautifully. You''re a frog in a pot: In order to cook a frog, you don''t throw him into a pot of boiling water. If you do, he''ll resist and jump-out. What you do instead is, you turn the heat-up REAL SLOW, and by the time the water is boiling, he won''t be able to jump out anymore, because it''s too late--he''s already doomed.
Consider the Patriot Act. The Law is 342 pages long, or 57,000 words, making it a bit longer than Dostoevsky''s "Notes from Underground" or, if you''re partial to pigs, about twice the size of Orwell''s "Animal Farm." The Patriot Act is the reigning champion of our government''s recent un-American activities. When it was first paraded before Congress and the Senate following the 9/11 attacks, few Members, other than Congressman, Ron Paul dared to vote against it. Most in Congress simply gave it their rubber-stamp of approval, without ever reading it. Why bother? It was, after all, named the "USA Patriot Act." It must be a good thing. Right? Now in effect, the Law wrecks a generation''s worth of constitutional protections against government snooping, legalizing police-state tactics in searches and seizures, criminalizing certain forms of speech and political activity, and opening the way for the mistreatment of foreigners in government custody and wholesale expulsions and imprisonment. It is a repugnant, unnecessary Law that goes against the very principles its name wrongly implies. Yet, it remains unchecked and unbalanced by public opinion, Lawmakers or the Courts. So, yes, we''re a nation of Laws. But the Laws aren''t much to speak of when they''re designed to hoodwink the public to win its docility. Neither is public responsibility much to speak of these days when its docility is secured with nothing more than a ploy-riddled play on the word "patriot."
Sadly, even though Clinton voted for the war in Iraq, and a host of Laws aimed at removing civil liberties; and our country''s sovereignty, Democrats are so blinded by her cult of personality that I predict they will overwhelmingly vote to put her crime family back into office. While I''ve made some progress in educating Liberals as to the phony staged consensus of the left-right paradigm, the fact remains that a majority of Democrats still see the White House as some kind of political Super Bowl, where the success of their "team" is the be all and end all - to the expense of America as a whole. The Punch and Judy show theater that was the "troop surge" debate in the Senate characterizes Hillary''s role in hoodwinking Americans perfectly. The debate is framed as not whether the U.S. should get out of the Middle-East altogether, but the relative minutia of whether to feed thousands of more troops into the meat grinder or not. A Clinton presidency will mean more war, more dead Americans, and a further desecration of the tattered shreds of what''s left of our Constitution. Clinton is the ultimate global elitist and represents the Democrats supposed base: the poor and downtrodden, about as much as Lindsay Lohan represents grace and dignity. I''m sure she informed the likes of David Rockefeller and Queen Beatrix as to her presidential aspirations during her last visit to attend the Bilderberger conference. Vote for a REAL AMERICAN. Vote for Ron Paul.
The Bilderberg Group is a secretive gathering of global power brokers, which includes Hillary Clinton, and a virtual who''s who of other folks whose names you will recognize (Search Wikipedia: "Bilderberg Attendees"), has inspired layers of ridicule. In recent times, the deeds laid at the group''s doorstep have included the creation of the EU, the Iraq war, and the group''s current efforts to create a North American Union, which will erase U.S. borders and sovereignty. Their agenda: economic and political domination; one world government; and world population reduction. After it was leaked that a speech by John Edwards at their meeting in Italy, was one reason for his selection as John Kerry''s vice-presidential running mate in 2000, people began to ask, "Are the Bilderbergers now shaping the worldwide political scene?" Over 130 of the world''s most powerful monarchs, politicians and business leaders attend the annual, invitation-only gatherings in order to to discuss and orchestrate public policy worldwide. The hotels involved are closed-off to other guests and reporters. Guards are placed around the perimeter, and attendees promise to keep quiet about what they hear and say. "They do not have to sign anything, but they understand that they do not talk," said Maja Banck-Polderman, the group''s Secretary. Tony Gosling, a British reporter who has followed the group says, "I think that a forum where so many rich and powerful people meet should be open to public scrutiny."