Board of Education Doesn't Support Seat Belts on School Buses

During the March 9 regular Board of Education Meeting, BOE member Sally Boske told her fellow board members that Middletown's State Representatives want a letter explaining the BOE's stance on school bus seat belts. Boske passed out a draft letter and the Board voted to send it (or something close to it) to Middletown's representatives.

The draft copy is available here.

I have been unable to determine the author of the draft as of yet, but several interesting comments were made by BOE members during the two or three minutes this issue was considered:

• Corinne Gill criticized the agenda's description of "State Legislative Issues," saying that she believed parents might have commented on the issue during the public session had they known that "State Legislative Issues" would include the topic of school bus seat belts.
• Jay Keiser noted during the discussion before the vote that school bus safety studies seem to be "neutral" on the subject of seat belts. He's seen some that suggest seats belts would be safer and some that suggest they wouldn't. Therefore, "I would need to see overwhelming evidence that seat belts are necessary before I would vote to have seat belts on buses."
• Ryan Kennedy admitted that he knew nothing about seat belt safety other than the draft letter he was given, and he abstained from the board vote because he felt it was unable to make a decision on a subject he was unfamiliar with. Kennedy commented that he wished the board would have taken some time to learn about and discuss the subject before voting on a position letter to Middletown's State Representatives.
• Sheila Daniels stated that she would at least want to look at having seat belts on Middletown buses when students are traveling on the highway.

DATTCO Vice-President Chris Gibson told me via phone interview a few weeks ago that the key concept in school bus safety is "compartmentalization." Gibson explained the concept as being similar to an egg carton, with high-backed seats designed to keep kids contained in their seats in the event of an accident. Gibson also pointed out that lap belts are not recommended as they can cause neck injuries, and that there currently is no effective design for a 3-point harness nor have safety studies on 3 point harnesses embedded in the seats been conducted yet. (Note: I was able to find information on the NHTSA website about studies involving lap/shoulder belts, but I'm not sure if this would be different from an embedded 3-point seat belt or not.)

Gibson raised other concerns like who would monitor and enforce children putting on (and keeping on) their seat belts, and who would help evacuate children from the seat belts in the event of an accident.

Interesting reading on the subject from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is available here and here (several quotes from the draft letter came from this source).

What information I could find in a quick search seems to conclude that the Federal Government has yet to be persuaded that it should nationally mandate seat belts on large school buses (smaller school buses are a totally different subject), but that state and local governments are free to make their own decisions. In Middletown's case, I wish that our Board of Education would have taken the tragically sad moment provided by the fatal bus crash as an opportunity to educate parents on the issues and to invite comments and questions. As it was, the Board as a whole didn't consider the issue for more than about 3 minutes, and the impression this left me with wasn't a good one. Considering the fact that our state legislators may just mandate seat belts on school buses in the very near future, I'd sure like to know that the probable $600,000+ Middletown tax payers would have to come up with to retro-fit our buses is both the right thing and the safe thing to do.