Everywhere you drive, there are constant reminders to buckle up.
That's what makes it so strange that when kids get on a school bus, there are no seatbelts
to be found.
How can that be legal?
Here are the details you need to know about why buses don’t have seatbelts.
Parents should breathe a big ol' sigh of relief at the fact that, statistically, school buses
are the safest vehicles on the road.
And it isn't even close.
These things are like yellow tanks, minus the weaponry.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, kids are 70 times more
likely to get to school safely when they take the school bus instead of a car.
So no matter how much parents brag about their driving skills, the bus is still a whole lot
safer.
"This one hit me like a big yellow school bus."
There are several reasons why buses are so safe.
For one, they're decked out with neat features like cross-view mirrors and flashing red lights.
Plus, there's that infamous traffic law regarding how passing a stopped school bus is akin to
throwing your driver's license into a bonfire.
Buses are also heavier than cars, and distribute crash forces in a different way.
The most important feature of all, though, is something called "compartmentalization."
Basically, this refers to how the seats are strong, closely spaced, and have raised, energy-absorbing
backs.
So when kids get flung forward, they safely bump into the tall seat in front of them,
instead of being thrown through a window.
To be thorough, it's not quite accurate to claim that all school buses don't have seatbelts.
The matter of buses having belts or not, and whether kids are required to wear them, often
depends on what state or town you live in.
In fact, a surprising number of states all require their school buses to be equipped
with seatbelts, including New York, New Jersey, Texas, Nevada, Arkansas, California, Florida,
and Louisiana.
However, the laws within these states differ tremendously.
For example, a kid in New Jersey is always required to buckle up, but a New York City
pipsqueak can go without.
To make matters more confusing, some places where seatbelts are enshrined in law say that
equipping a bus with belts is only really required if the funding for the belts is provided
by the state or school districts.
So it's possible that you could live in a state that demands seatbelts and yet still
see no belts on your child's bus.
While the evidence does mostly show seat belts as having more safety benefits than defects,
there are a few areas where they might actually hinder student safety, particularly in the
case of evacuations.
Common sense tells you that if a school bus gets stuck in a railroad crossing, then it's
easier and faster to rush dozens of kids off the vehicle if nobody has to fidget with buckles
or straps.
However, it's worth noting that despite previous concerns about slower evacuations, the National
Transportation Safety Board went from an anti-seatbelt stance to a pro-seatbelt one in 2018.
They came to this decision after careful analysis of two deadly 2016 bus crashes.
When it comes to getting seatbelts on buses, money is a major problem.
Installing dozens of new seatbelts on every school bus won't pay for itself, of course.
When assessing the matter in 2007, the United States Congress found that the cost of adding
lap-and-shoulder belts to a large school bus would range from $8,000 to $15,000 per bus.
That's on top of the $75,000 cost of a new school bus to begin with, so think of it like
a 10 to 20 percent price increase.
One study by the University of Alabama found that phasing in seat belts over the course
of a decade could cost $117 million per state.
As a result, school districts aren't necessarily throwing their wallets down, unless they see
strong enough evidence of the safety benefits, which means seatbelt laws often don't get
passed.
So politics is part of the issue here, but there's a bigger problem afoot.
Some seatbelt opponents don't oppose belts per se.
Rather, they're concerned that if states and school districts were mandated to purchase
seat belts, they would cut costs by purchasing fewer buses altogether.
If a school district has less buses, it also means fewer kids have the safe availability
of bus transportation, and that's not good for anyone.
Another issue raised by congressional debates on this topic is that installing lap-and-shoulder
belts could very likely reduce the seating capacity on school buses.
The average school bus generally fits between 60 and 84 elementary school kids, assuming
you can squeeze three kids into a seat, and thus six in a row.
Lap-and-shoulder belt setups take up extra room, meaning that bus seats would have to
be restructured so that there would be three kids on one side and two on the other, or
two on each side.
Seating capacity would then be reduced by about 16 to 33 percent.
And buses can't just become wider, as they already have to wind through narrow streets
and neighborhoods.
The obvious solution is to just have more school buses.
But once again, buses are costly.
The powers-that-be are worried that if school districts, strapped for cash, were forced
to cough out money on seat belts, they might just buy fewer buses.
This would strand a lot of lower-income students, leaving them without safe public transportation
to school.
So ultimately, in certain ways it's in everyone's best interests that buses don't have belts.
"I'll turn this damn bus around that’ll end your precious little field trip pretty
damn quick, huh?"
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