No passenger vehicle on the road today is without seat belts. The safety restraints save countless lives and prevent thousands of injuries in the event of an accident. That fact makes it all the more puzzling to find that buses, the vehicles that move large numbers of people daily, are not equipped with seat belts. Even school buses transporting rowdy children to and from school are exempt from the seat belt standard.
The Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration must field the question of why seat belts remain absent from school buses frequently because it created a page devoted to answering that and related questions. Believe it or not, those yellow school buses with screeching brakes and shuddering turns are one of the safest vehicles running in the United States. An average of six children die in school bus crashes every year, compared to the hundreds killed while walking or riding their bikes.
While some school buses appear to be derelict relics of a bygone era, the design is sound and safe enough to house the precious cargo without a seat belt. Buses are heavier than most passenger vehicles on the road and also house the passengers much higher up. These two key factors mean that the impact forces of a crash are distributed differently and aren't felt as intensely as those traveling in lighter vehicles. It's like the passengers are in a safety pod above the accident.
Despite the design, there are still instances where children are injured or killed in a school bus accident. In some of these cases, a seat belt would have prevented the injury. As a result, some states and school districts have passed standards that require new buses be equipped with safety restraints. However, that is a higher cost because of the added equipment and because fewer children can be seated on the bus. Many schools are content with the fact that buses are seven times safer than passenger cars.
The greater danger in school bus related accidents comes once the bus has come to a stop to unload passengers. Other drivers may not obey the law that requires all traffic to stop on both sides of the street, leading to a pedestrian accident when a child attempts to cross the road. All official school transportation accidents account for 2 percent of student accidents. Of all accidents involving students going to and from school, 75 percent occurred when privately driven by a parent or other guardian.
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