Ask Mike: Seat belts on school buses
Hey Guys,
I loathed taking the school bus as a kid. I would try anything to convince my parents to drive me. I quickly learned that the best tactic was to remind them that the school bus didn’t have seat belts. “What if there’s an accident,” I would moan.
Little did I know that beneath my shameless pleas, I was actually raising an interesting point. Cars, pickups, and SUVs have seat belts. School buses, on the other hand, are notorious for not having them. Few people know why.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a government agency, explains on their website that school buses use a different safety technique to protect riders called “compartmentalization,” a “protective envelope consisting of strong, closely-spaced seats that have energy-absorbing seat backs.”
That description should sound familiar to anyone who has done time on the school bus. Those high-backed green seats with less legroom than even the stingiest airline apparently serve a purpose — to protect kids. The NHTSA goes on to explain that because buses are heavier, “the crash forces experienced by occupants of buses are much less than that experienced by occupants of passenger cars, light trucks or vans.”
Despite the NHTSA’s findings, there are those who feel school buses should still have seat belts. The National Coalition for School Bus Safety argues that compartmentalization doesn’t protect riders against “rear-end, lateral and rollover collisions.”
What do you guys think about school bus safety? Does compartmentalization strike you as being the way to go, or should all school buses have seat belts? Keep in mind, that according to the NHTSA, studies have proven that seat belts would add “little, if any” added protection. Thoughts? Sound off below.
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hmmmmm when I heard there was no seatbelts i found out that theres not fast enough people with seatbelts on so if theres a fire or crash they can’t unclip the seatbelt in time but that was in elementary school i’m in high school right now so people should be fast enough so I say
Yes: Seatbelts on all buses except Elemenetary Buses
The best time to learn good habits is from the beginning. Seatbelts are a good habit.
Actually, our school districts are wanting to buy new buses with seat belts. The price tag is anywhere between 40,000 and 70,000 more than regular buses. And yeah, they mentioned the compartmentalizing for safety, but still want to try to buy the new ones, most likely by rearranging the budget and taking from things that need the money, or raising taxes. I vote no seat belts. One of the only reasons kids even want to ride a bus is that there are no seat belts. It’s not like a bus driver can enforce belts for every child.
I live less than 50 miles from the site of the horrific crash of the church bus that happened this weekend (Woodbury, NY). Fourteen people were in a van going to a church banquet, when a tire blew out, the driver lost control the ban rolled – and all 14 were ejected – 6 killed, 8 in very serious condition. Would some of these poor people have survived if they were wearing seatbelts? One would so assume – because they would not have been ejected. I taught school for over 30 years, and we would close school for two flakes of snow – because we feared injury or worse from bus accidents. This did not make us babies – we still made up all the time! – but this only reinforced what we all know – the interiors of school buses have NOT kept up with auto safety and common sense, no matter what the *regulations* are. These are big yellow death traps, but CAN be improved.
I go to public school, and since 8th grade, all our buses have had seat belts. And the driver requires that we wear them…so annoying. The seats are still super high, and without being able to kneel on the seat to see above it, we can’t talk to our friends. I know it’s for safety and all that, but the entire class groans in unison when we hear we’re taking the bus because of the seat belts. We actually long for the old buses!
I know all the arguments for/against seat belts on school busses!
Frankly, I think the gov’t would require seatbelts if it weren’t for the cost to the school districts for the belts! If they could figure a way to pass the cost along to the consumer, kids on the bus would be in seat belts!
My 5 year old granddaughter rides a school bus home from Kindergarten. From what she tells me, the older kids on the bus should be seatbelted in and should be wearing handcuffs and gags on their mouths!
I told her…Tell the bus driver to invite Memaw to ride on the bus. I would take care of it so quickly!
Then, all the school district would have to worry about is seat belts!
I am in middle school right now and I ride bus morning and afternoon. I have ridden the bus for 3 years now. We might not have seatbelts but we also have an emergency back door, emergency window escapes and some other emergency escape on the top. We practice our safety procedures every so months. So we have a way to get out safely pretty much in any situation.
I am a schoolbus driver and this issue has been brought up numerous times and what I have been told is in the event of an accident and the driver had to help children off the bus, who do we help first. There is a two minute time frame for passengers to get off bus in the event of a fire, who do we unbuckle first. Any driver would risk their lives for the safety of a child. They are our most precious cargo but in the event of a fire or a dangerous circumstance, we would have to make a decision of which child to unbuckle first wherre without seatbelts, of course, there would probably be injuries but hopefully not deaths. We practice bus evacuations yearly and each child knows all the exits and is train to exit the bus in a safe manner.
Okay well now a days, (in my town at least) there are seat belts. Three to a seat in fact. Just thought you should know….
compartmentalization doesn’t really work. I used to be too big for the bus, so I had to get in sideways and backwards to get in a seat, and I had to duck in order to walk to the seat. if there was an accident, I had nothing to protect me exept the window behind, but I do remember that some buses had one seat belt on the front seat, but they took those out after some kid got jammed and the bus caught on fire, which he couldn’t get out, so the driver had to cut out the seatbelt in order to get him to escape. I think they should add more room, but still leave seatbelts out, the bus has enough seats, but not enough room
Well, in my school we have seat belts on the buses. It’s just that nobody’s required to use them, so nobody ever does.
I’m in New York, by the way. Maybe it’s different where you are?
I think they should be there for an option to use.
I agree
My friend rides a bus with seatbelts – but no one wears them, to tbh, for most people their useless anyway.
I ride the school bus. I can tell you right now, even if school buses did have seatbelts, no child on the bus would wear one. It would be a pointless waste of money. Plus, I highly doubt my bus driver would enforce the rule (she’s not exactly enthusiastic about her job.) I say compart-whateverism is fine, it’s been fine for years.
Really? The busses when I was in school were red, and wide open.
Dude, you missed out on all the cool stuff, like when the bus hits a bump, you fly right out of one seat and into another, it was so cool, but don’t get caught by the driver, or holy moly, you’ll be walkin’ home, even J-seating will get you suspended for a week,
Sure there was bullying and mischief with doodles and stink bombs, but kids will be kids, and you get to meet different crowds on a bus, if you take the car, you only meet classmates, not newbies or other students from other grades or schools, one bus driver even played popular tunes,
Now you also want to look a Transit buses, students use those as well, with no seat-belts, and the Greyhound and Trains don’t use seat belt either,
School buses are not suppose to speed, and the Drivers need special training and licenses as well,
There was one issue last year where the driver of Bus wasn’t really a Schools driver, and nor the bus, he went around early and tried to lure the students for a joy ride, but there appears to be other incidents of hijackers as well,
So maybe it would be more important to have secure access to buses and video cameras, and proper networking system and time schedules integrated into the buses, communication radio, elmer safety tips, guideline handouts for new seasons starting, and any locations where there are hazardous roads and cliffs, spend extra on more secure buses and seat belt options, where as driving from Dog River to Wullerton (spit), you might catch a few winks before arrival, but not with some Chris the Prankster type character around,
And sometimes the heating and cooling is not all that so you have to dress accordingly, those were the days,
Riding a school bus to and from school is statistically BY FAR the safest way to get to and from school; safer than walking, riding a bike, driving, or getting a ride from Mom. The few deaths that have occured usually involve boarding or disembarking and crossing roads. The few lives that might be spared by having seat belts are economically questionable. It has been estimated that it would cost over 50 million dollars per life possibly saved to retrofit all the school buses. Then there is the question of deaths CAUSED by seat belts in the event of fire, rollover, strangulation, or crashing into a lake. I have been driving school buses for over 35 years and maintaining a fleet of them for nearly as long. The people who are pushing seat belts on buses do not understand the physics or logistics of school buses. They are the same ones who think we should have seat belts on motorcycles.
On our buses no one had seat belts except the front 2 seats and the driver. if you had to sit up front with the seat belts it meant you were misbehaving.
The real question is,
If seat belts are implemented in school buses, would the students wear them?
I say let the kids enjoy not wearing seat belts while they can. It is required by law to wear a seat belt when driving a car.
I have never been on a bus that did not have seat belts! So strange, all the buses i know of have always had them. Doesn’t mean we ever wore them though! its totally ignored and it would actually be strange if you saw someone put a seatbelt on.
Although school buses don’t have seat belts, neither do the regular buses. But then again, I remember in high school, we had to sit 3 to a seat for some field trips and the school buses were not meant for adult sized kids. =/
my bus has seat belts, just no one wears them
This really brings back some interesting memories of school bus trips. I recall the qualifications required to operate a school bus, were such that a chimpanzee on crack was over qualified. Remember the school bus scene in one of those Freddy Krueger movies? Well, that paled by comparison. So, maybe seat belts aren`t such a bad idea.
I am a senior in high school and I am still forced to ride the bus, in my school alone there have been three bus accidents two of which have been near roll overs, and it’s true, during roll overs the seats that are so closely positioned together do not protect the students, there are people sliding all over the place, especially the younger ones who don’t always have the upper body strength to hold themselves up if there is a dramatic angle if the bus is in a potential roll over situation what happens if a 200 pound student accidentally lands on a 116 pound student, I assure you it isn’t the best situation to deal with. There was one incident at our school where a van pulled out of the school parking lot with out looking and a bus t boned the van and forutantly there was only minimal damage to the van, however the seat positioning is only useful in a collision situation but not in a roll over. However, the problem that stands with little kids now a days they don’t think they have to listen to anyone but their parents and sometimes they don’t even listen to them, so how are we going to ensure that the kids are actually buckeling up and staying that way. Kids don’t think about their saftey they are more worried about enteracting with their peers.
It has been proven time and time again that school buses are safer WITHOUT seat belts. High-back school bus seats were introduced in the late 1970s. They are designed to absorb the impact of a student in a crash. Belts would be fine for older students, but for the smaller ones (under 80 lbs) a frontal crash forces the child to be held at the waist, causing tremendous pressure and often hyper extending
the neck, hips, and legs in a severe crash.
In a perfect world, assuming all the kids on a bus stay seated properly, It is a lot less painful for a small child for a full body to hit the back of a seat in front of their face than a small area like the waist to undergo tremendous stretching and pressure. Larger, older students are going to hit the front of the seat no matter what. Let’s not forget that the belts and buckles could be used as weapons, especially if they are cut.
seat belts are over rated for schoolbusses
I take 2 buses to and from school. In the morning the first one does not have seatbelts but the second one does. No-one ever wheres the seatbelts although they are there. Plus, our buses get so full that sometimes we have kids standing up. If they are standing up (which is obviously something that seatbelts could not protect) without seatbelts, then why would the people sitting down need them?
I personally really like no seatbelts, because it means that I can find a seat in-front or behind my friends and sit whichever way I find comfortable or convinient.
I say no seatbelts on buses.
School Buses are made with no seatbelts for a reason there’s no need for them, a wrote a thesis about this a while back. Since there is a seat in front of every seat, it stops you from being thrown, besides seatbelts would be a hassle for smaller children if there was an emergency.
My mom drove a school bus for 25+ years. There is a simple reason there are no seat belts on buses – the kids rip them out.
Also, who is going to enforce the kids wearing them? There are [ or were] 58 students and one driver.
Seat belts are a very BAD idea for school buses. They only serve to fool parents into thinking they’re doing something safer for their kids. Do you remember the back of the school bus? The belts would easily be used in dangerous games, or even as weapons. Plus the smaller kids would be at risk of injury from not being able to use them properly. Buses are super safe already, and they would LESS safe with seat belts.
I don’t know all of the physics involved in vehicle safety, so I have a hard time arguing one way or another.
The one thing I did want to point out was that kids (especially elementary school age) could and probably would mess around with seatbelts on the bus. I’m sure they would find ways to injure themselves and/or others.
When I was a child, I chewed on my seatbelt for fun, and when I let it go, it snapped back and brought one of my teeth with it.
when i was in the sixth grade a midsize sedan rammed into the back of the school bus i was riding while we were stopped. i was in the very back seat, and the impact seemed to be about the same as though the driver had briefly hit the brakes hard. the sedan was totaled, they had to pry the door open to get the driver out, the hood was smashed up to the windshield. the bus however, was fine. a scratch and maybe a small dent in the bumper. it didn’t even need to be repaired. i say forget about the seatbelts.
by the way Mamianka, Holy Cow!! of freaking coarse they close the school for snow!! that’s why the busses don’t need seatbelts!
I agree. Buses should have seatbelts. The funny thing is, at my high school when i was going to track meets our buses had seat belts, but when we went on field trips we didn’t have seat belts on them. I would think my field trip one would have seat belts because there were triple the amount of people on the bus then my track team. It’s weird.
I’ve driven school buses for 5 different districts in 3 states and have an excellent driving record. Still I have had several occasions to be thankful that my students wer not locked to the seats with seatbelts.
Fist off, the driver is the most likely to be injured in the case of a collision. I am disabled because a drunk driver turned into the path of my bus. I was doing 28 in a 35 mph zone and it broke my neck and almost broke my left hip.
I have also had my students do emergency evacuations due to a fire in a vehicle behind my bus, a fight when a gang member jumped on board and attacked a student, and as training just in case.
The seat belts in any of the above conditions would have made it impossible for the students to evacuate the bus. The belts also cause a lot of abdominal and pelvic injuries to adults in cars, much less kids.
A remark about the 15 passenger vans that blow tires and crash has nothing to do with seatbelts. The vans don’t have the structural stability that a vehicle that size needs, and they almost all use passenger tires instead of truck tires to save money on operations costs. The difference of $100 +/- per tire for thicker sidewalls could have saved those in the vans. They are so dangerous that several states have banned their use or made them illegal for districts to own.
Another thought that most people haven’t thought about. The seat belts can damage childrens’ abdominal and pelvic regions if used as restraints, but they can also be used as weapons and to choke students when not used. I’ve dealt with behavior students and gang members, and things can go bad real quick. If my students had been strapped in, they would not have been able to escape and could have been seriously injured.
If a school is going to spend the money on seatbelts, they need to make sure that they have a double over the shoulder harness system, and hire 2 assistants to make sure that all of the kids are belted correctly and under constant supervision.
If your kids ride buses, then tell them to take the seats near the wheels, stay away from the seats near the door or driver and the last 2 rows of seats in the back.
I’ve seen pictures of buses that crashed at 30 to 60 miles per hour, one into a 100 year old oak tree. Most of the time the driver was killed or seriously injured, but virtually every kid made it off with non-life threatening injuries. The 3+ inch thick foam is actually safer for kids than the airbags and seatbelts in your cars.
If you have any questions, ask the highway patrol in your area. They inspect all buses and respond to the accidents involving school buses, it’s their jurisdiction. They can help you to make an informed decision based on facts not hype.
Good topic Mike! I’d have to agree with the experts on this mainly because it hasn’t become an issue since Day 1.
When you consider public transportation too, the government is pretty strict on safety. Not that there isn’t any flaws in the system, but once an accident happens, you can bet everything is going to be scrutizined inside out and measures wil be taken to prevent it from happening again.
I would imagine that someone must’ve died in all of bus history because of a bus hanging upside down. Who knows the stats on that. They should educate teh public more on this though.
When I drove a school bus, I figured seat belts would have been a pain, but I often wished I had them when transporting middle school aged precious snowflakes who just wouldn’t sit down.
School buses are already the safest mode of transportation around. I know people want to spare no expense when it comes to their kids’ safety, but you’re up against the law of diminishing returns here. The bottom line is that seat belts on the larger, 30′-40′ buses won’t do anything to make kids safer except as far as they make them stay in their seats. The extra expense will get you no benefit.
On the smaller buses, yeah they should (and do) have seat belts, but don’t put seat belts on the big buses. Buy a music teacher instead.
To quote the last line, “studies have proven that seat belts would add “little, if any” added protection” At least a little would be better than none, right?
school buses are built like tanks its gonna take one hell of a crash to do harm considering they go at a snail speed too
Well your still safe because each seat on the school bus is closed-in by the back of the seat in-front of it.
I’m sixteen and in high school, and let me tell you, my buses have always been, since elementary school, the BIGGEST safety hazards out there. Kids literally scream, open all windows far past the line, get up, stand up, throw things, crawl under seats, get violent, jump around, hell in elementary school it was a strange fad for everyone to grab both seats within one seat and flip upside-down as the bus was moving! My bus now is way too crowded, so half of us illegally stand, and the bus driver doesn’t care.
For whatever reason, kids who take buses are criminally INSANE. And bus drivers let them do what they want because they really don’t care. If there were seat belts on my bus, no one would use them. In fact people would most likely break them off and use them to beat each other.
I personally have never felt safe on buses. Other than all the reasons listed above, I have had some horrible bus drivers who CANNOT drive. We used to have a substitute bus driver, and let me tell you, when we saw her face we feared LIFE. She would make the sharpest turns, get way too close to objects like mailboxes and pedestrians, speed, and we’d be flying all over the place! I would literally have to hold on for dear life to the seat in front of me to prevent major head injury or body casts.
But all the madness and scariness of what I listed above it honestly what’s always been so fun about riding it…to a kid, it’s crazy and rebellious and downright fun. Until you get older and have a bunch of thugs on your bus who give you headaches and make you want to hide your body in a jacket…
I drive a bus in New York [state, not the city].
It is required that the buses are equipped with seat belts, but the students are not required to wear them.
I doubt the kids would be diligent about the seat belts. They’d probably take it off to turn around and talk to their friend or something.
The town I went to did not have seat belts except the front to seats (which were usually reserved for kids with disabilities mental or physical). Seat belts contrary to popular opinion are not synonymous with safe. In fact there are cases where wearing a seatbelt in certain accidents is dangerous. Most bus drivers are trained well (at least where I lived) before being allowed to drive. I see no need to implement seat belts
in buses. It would be a waste of time and money.
Consider this- The testing performed on this compartmentalizing technique was probably done with the subjects sitting properly in the seats. Does anyone here ever remember sitting in the seat facing the front with their legs in the space in front of them? Not me! I was often backwards, sideways or standing. If nothing else, seatbelts would have the children in the safest position for themselves, others and the driver who not only needs to watch the road but is responsible for disciplining the behavior of the students on the bus. If they don’t want to install seatbelts, then they should consider having another authority figure on the bus with the driver. Im betting the belts are cheaper.
I think like you do Mike. I hate riding buses, even public transportation not just school buses that don’t have seatbelts. I wish that schools require their buses to have seatbelts. I think first and foremost is the safety of our children and I think seatbelts will always be the safety way. I like your thinking Mike.
I was a bus driver and let me tell you when we saw a tape of with kids in seat belts in a crash they had more broken necks and back then in the ones with out. The seats are made for less inpack to injures. They would need seat belts like a roller coster ride for them to be safe. then you have to have something that would tell if they had them on.. then there be the smart kids that would take them off .. I say leave of the seat belts in this instance..Buses are made safe for the kids.
heey, I’m in Middle School and we don’t have seat belts on our buses but alot of kids enjoy not having to wear a seat belt. i dont like wearing seat belts because when the belt part is on my stomach if it’s on even just a little too tight it upsets my stomach. when i was little i used to get car sick and that’s when i starting hating the idea of seat belts. my parents always make me wear one, of coarse but i dont like it at all. i feel much more free without having to wear a seatbelt on the bus but i can’t stop feeling that the thought of seat belts on busses are a great idea. i just feel like it would restrict us from being able to turn and talk to our friend that might be sitting in another seat, even if that’s the point. but i will admit, it’s not the worst idea iv’e heard….
my mom drives the bus she hates even onne kid having a seatbelt
In my oppinion, Seatbelts would make busses LESS safe; what if there is a fire? And you can’t get you’re seatbelt off?
Besides, you can’t see below anyones necks in the bus mirror; the bus driver would have to hand check each seat before he hit the gas. XD
I heard that the reason is that some people feel that in an emergency that the seatbelt would become tangled on a child therefore denying them the chance to escape the bus if it crashed or is on fire. I also here some people are just too slow to press a big red button to release a safety belt but I think that we can teach kids to do this quite fast. In fact just today we had an evacuation test on our bust where we go out the back door. It takes so long to get everybody ready to jump that I don’t think a safety belt would endanger safety as I was standing in my seat for at least 30 seconds before the line stated to move.
I’m so glad I’m a senior and I don’t have to worry about that… but a seat belt doesn’t protect from side collisions either. And some busses do have seat belts. Do you see how they look. Most of the belts are broken dirty jammed or what not. I say do with out them.
If it’s required for us ‘grown ups’ to buckle up for our safety it’s ridiculous for buses not to have belts to protect our children. The past few bus accidents that have had fatalities that I’ve heard of have all involved a bus flipping or rolling over. It is hypocritical for our children not to have seat belts. I understand the fire danger, but I also understand the danger of our children being hurled onto the top of the bus when it rolls and then the top being torn off as the bus skids. It’s a terrifying image but it needs to be addressed.
I think the reason the buses in my area don’t have belts is because if they did, the school district can’t cram three kids to a seat. Bus overcrowding is a big problem in my area.
I ride the scool bus and last year I liked this year my bus driver is MEAN so I dread riding the bus I think bises are safe when you have a good(Knows what their doing) bus driver. Mine can drive but dosn’t handle disiplice verry well so it’s really parents’ decretion becaus they pay the taxes I don’t agree wit you nor do I agree with evryone else
I actually came on the site today for opinions of other people regarding a similar situation. My daughter who is in Kindergarten just began riding the bus this year. We are going on her 5th week of school and I’ve already made a call to the director of transportation since apparently it is okay with the bus driver to talk on the cell phone while driving and to let my 5 year old stand up on the bus and put her hands and head out of the window! I can’t believe people can become a darn bus driver so easy. I don’t care about the “compartmentalization” because if the driver slammed on the brakes while my child is sitting up on her knees facing side-ways in the bus she will still be slammed into the front seat.
Then there would be that one kid who figured out he could use the things as stationary flails
I see why people would want seatbelts on buses, but I don’t believe it needs to be done. Look at all the years we’ve gone without seatbelts on buses, and the people that rode those buses were still kept safe.
Plus, my bus was in a head on collision last year, and the thing was barely damaged. I have a feeling it can protect me from most anything.
I think buses should have seat belts but unlike in a car it shouldn’t be illegal for bus passengers to wear them. They should have a choice. But it should be illegal for buses to not have seat belts at all. Many times when I was in a car and somebody else was driving and the person had to stop suddenly the seat belt stopped me from slamming into the seat in front of me when I was sitting in the back or from hitting the airbag plate in the front of the car.
the rules are to stay seated@
tire safety
speed
the question should be to the drivers of these school buses not their human cargo
i was thinking about this, i took bus for years
and nothing ever happened
thank you
Hmmm…
Actually, the new buses that have A/C actually do have seat belts. Problem solved!
I was always concerned with those rollovers which seem to happen a lot more than other things. It would have made me feel better.
I think seatbelts wouldn’t help because of over crowded buses. The people I used to ride the bus with were lucky if they got two on a seat! Two seat belts for 3 people? Doesn’t really work.
The seats are designed to take the impact of an accident. Seat belts are hard to use, for many reasons. Children have to be a certain height to use a seat belt or the need a booster seat. That would require the buses to have booster seats.
Even if the bus drivers checks before they leave if every students is wearing a seat belt, by the time they are done, and driving more then half of them will have taken the seat belt off already.
Also, Would you want to be the parent of the few kids who died because there was an accident and the bus driver did not get to your child to get the seat belt off. Getting students off the bus if this happened would not be controlled and kids would be all over the place. The younger students will be stuck in the seat belts.
My district has seat belts in the shorter buses, but not the long buses. These buses have less students making it easier to get everyone out safely if something happened.
Even though the seat-belts wouldn’t protect in a collision, they would make the kids sit down, stop overcrowding of the seats, limit bullying more (since each child would be more contained), and basically would benefit the children just from basic habit of always being buckled in a moving vehicle. Is there any reason to NOT have them? Costs perhaps, but that’s about it.
Hello! I asked my bus driver about this, and she said they weren’t good to have them at all, though all the new buses have them. If there is a crash, the seats fold a bit, so it takes longer to get the riders out, and if a fire is there, it will be very dangerous. But really, bus drivers are very careful. Its also hard to accidentally ram a giant yellow orange-ish thing… you know?
No, no seat belts on buses! Weren’t your fond memories as a child getting to ride on a bus BECAUSE of the no seat belts! Don’t break tradition!
There is a great need for seat belts on school buses. Just recently within the last few days there was a bus accident. Thankfully, no children were injured critically or killed. However, this past June in the same rural area a 6 year old boy lost his life in a school bus accident. Seat belts should be mandatory on school buses. When will we as a society step up to the plate and begin to realize that our chidlren are worth protecting.
The problem with seatbelts is the studies are conducted by the insurrance companies in association with the highway saftey commision. Which means they are typically skewed in the insurance companies favor. In the ’90s they were called out for the fact that the car was not only static but locked in place which allowed for greater damage to be caused. In reality if a car hit’s something or gets hit it moves, either rebounding or being pushed in a given direction. It was shown that when a car was allowed to move after impact the damage was not as extensive.
The other problem is that there have been no studies done on how many may actually be seriously injured or even killed because they wear seatbelts. I have read dozens of times of individuals who weren’t saved by their seatbelts with the article failing to explain why that was. It could have easily been something that the seatbelt couldn’t have prevented, such as decapitation. Or it could have been the seatbelt itself caused sudden stop, snapping a persons neck.
The problem with seatbelts on school buses is actually what the seatbelt will be, which is a lap belt. Lap belts have been shown to be the worst seat belt for protection as it only keeps you in the seat but does not prevent you from moving forward from the waist up.
I’ve ridden the bus since 3rd grade, i live in upstate NY. I don’t know where you grew up but where I live, a large city, we have seat belts. I’ve never been on a bus that didn’t have them.
I think seat belts on school busses would be stupid because lets say theres a fire the little kids don’t know how to unbuckle their seat belts and would die. ALSO if the school bus were to crash and end up in a lake the little kids would also not know how to unbuckle their seat belts and die.
On an earlier comment, I totally forgot but back in middle school kids used to whip those things at other kids. stretch them out as long as they go, you can whack the kid sitting next to you or across from you really good, those metal clips are heavy! I think the district actually took them out because they were being used as weapons so much. lol, that’s what happens when you go to school in the ghetto.
i’m all for school bus seat belts but i’m thinking it would be hard to put them in but I don’t know, i don’t see it happening anytime soon but hopefully.
I disagree that seatbelts should be installed in buses. Smaller children do not know how to operate a seatbelt themselves, and in the event of a fire, they would be trapped. Older children would likely vandalize the seatbelts or use them to choke their friends or other childish things.
A bus is a much larger vehicle than a car or a van which is why I think they are not necessary.
There is an interesting purpose… but who would actually check to see all the kids have their seat belts on. An SUV has 5? seats easy to check and put them on for the kids who can’t and you just look back and see they all have them on or off. And if there’s a crash and the firefighters or whoever need to get all the kids out and had to undo their seat belts as well that poses a problem. All in all I think its cheaper and more conventional to keep seat belts out of all buses and risk the risks.
yea i dont know where you grow up but when i graduated high school we had seat belts on most of our school buses and that was 2 years ago…they started getting them about 3 or 4 years ago and there are seat belts on all of our school buses in the district now…safety is important and with the adding seatbelts they also added air conditioning and seat room…my last year of high school riding the bus was great
another argument is that it would be more dangerous to have seatbelts because they would take too much time to undo especially with small children if there was an accident…
but when my niece was small, she fell off the seat every time it turned the corder…nothing is stopping them from be thrown off the side of the seat..and into the kid on the other side of the aisle.
i believe my state puts them on all busses now.
they should at least have some sort of belt diagonally down the side, one that is fixed (no latch) but on a retracter like a seat belt, so it will have some give for kids to push past, but if they are sitting they will fall into it.
i think there should be seat belts on school buses just in case of a crash or something and when the bus turns around a corner you dont fall of a seat
My bus has seatbelts and it’s inforsed that we wear them. Our bus driver comes around and makes sure we’re all wearing them. Then we just take themj of when he drives.
I remember on the buses I used to ride to school I could feel the metal pole on the top of the seat in front of me. I was always terrified that if we came to a smashing halt that my face would be crushed by that pole.
I haven’t been on a school bus for like 7 or 8 years. I’m an adult now. We never had seat belts on the buses (except the driver) I never even thought of the idea anyway.
But I do take public buses. Most of the the regular buses don’t have seat belts but the long distance buses always do. I never wore seat belts unless I was going long distance. Besides people on regular buses would stand too. By the way I never saw a school bus that lets people stand.
Anyway, I don’t really understand the saftety features of compartmentalization or how much it helps, etc. And I don’t have all the facts of how often accidents happen, etc. If you really want to know if you should but seat belts on buses, then you should take into account everything and see whether or not the extra costs are worth it. This is a job for the engineers and stuff so they can calculate this.
As a person, well, I just hope that they decide whatever is the best way to do it.
Wellllll, what about city buses? Talk about dangerous! All those people, INCLUDING children actually STANDING UP while they are riding because there are not enough seats for everyone? Doesn’t that just spell disaster?
Honestly, I like the idea of seat belts on school busses to keep the kids seated. Too many awful memories of bullies jumping on me, taking my stuff and throwing them out the window. Also, kids are always roaming around, I can recall a few times where kids made face plants right into the floor, broken noses, teeth and all and more than once this happened.
Even if you do make buses more expensive by adding seat belts, there’s no guarantee they’ll do any good. Arguing about compartmentalization aside, kids in a large area like a bus are bound to simply not wear the seat belts anyway.
it’s only been 1 short year since I’ve last rode a school bus, and I can honestly say that I felt very uneasy about there being no seat belts.
Think of when you were little, and the bus would go over a bump in the road, and you catch some “sweet air.” when I was little I flew about a foot in the air, just over a bump.. think of what would happen if it were a fricken crash..
the buses are good about having the first couple seats with seat belts for kids that need safety seats because of disability
I vote YES for seatbelts on buses
Great now what are you going to do about the 10 times(AT LEAST) a day this is asked in the Safety category?
I am a school bus driver, in my bus there are seat belts plus built in harnesses for the smaller children. My seats are also very high with very little leg room. We do have buses that do not have seat belts in them how ever but the claims are they are still safe most have high backs and very little leg room.
I’ve noticed that a lot of our buses are getting new seats in them all with seat belts and all are high backs with less leg room.
I’m a school bus driver. They are correct in saying school buses are safe, but the big “if” lies in the kids sitting in their seats properly. I have driven children from the ages of 4-18 and the biggest problem I have is with the kids staying in their seats. I have written up and reported more kids for not sitting properly then anything. Someone mentioned good habits are best formed early, and I agree. As a school bus driver I want to get the kids to and from school safely, I ask that any parents that read this please reinforce to your children the importance of sitting in their seats properly. As for seat belts, first, most states do not have attendances on the bus unless there is a special needs child on the bus, how am I suppose to make all the kids buckle up and sit still so the seat belts stay in the proper anatomical place? If you wear a seat belt in the wrong place and there is an accident, the seat belt can cause severe internal injuries. I am not against seat belts on the bus, I have to wear one, but before we can make sure all children are buckled in we need to get the cooperation of the students. As it is right now we can’t, and when us bus drivers do take disciplinary actions because the children will not stay seated, mom and dad turn us into the bad guy claiming we are picking on their child. Take it from a school bus driver, I’m not picking on your baby, I want to get them to and from school safely, but every time I have to look back in my mirror and see them standing, then have to yell for them to sit,it is time my eyes are off the road. It may only be 2 seconds, but a lot of things can happen in 2 seconds. I don’t want to hurt anyone. Please moms and dads tell your kids to sit down, it’s for their safety. If we can get pass that hurdle then maybe we can work on the seat belts.
Wrong answer, wrong premise.
I discovered early on that I could get there quicker by walking, running, or riding my bike because of all the stops the bus had to make.
More recently, walking my grandson to school, I discovered the safety hazard of mom’s backing out of driveways to drive their kids to the same school a few blocks away. Do we need seatbelts and airbags on the sidewalk too?
Maybe we just yank the car keys and cell phones from all the obese housewives……
From a bus driver. The seats in the bus are high and are made to take a blow without hurting the students. Another reason is because there is only one driver and up to 80 students on the bus. some may have a hard time getting out and only the bus driver has a built cutter. I once saw a semi truck going 50 rearend into a bus at a stop light. the semi was totaled, but the bus only had a slite bend in the bummper. It was a 64 passenger special ed. students in wheelchairs. No one was hurt. These are heavy duty buses made to with stand many accidents. Seat belts Have been tested in buses and proved not to be as safe as many might think. However, there are some districts that do have seat belts. the objectivity is to get the students out asap. Seat belts won’t allow that. .When not wearing a seat they can be painful to sit on and used as weapos.
I rode the bus for 8+ years NEVER did we practice evacuation on ANY bus! My son has now been riding for 2 years and I know they have also never done it! I know that it would be hard but everyone in kindergarten and above should be able to unbuckle a lap belt. If not the they should be taught how! I wish our bus’ had seat belt on them for every ones safety!
I am a school bus driver and you do not want seat belts on a school bus. Why? because, in case of any accident, those children need to get off of that bus as quickly as possible. What if the driver cannot reach all of those children? What if driver is killed or unconscious? Esp little children will be trapped in their belts.
End of story.
its just an assisnine idea to even think about putting in seatbelts we need to worry about things like giving the kids a proper education first we cant even manage to do that right now
NO seat belts on bus. School buses are far more safe than cars trucks and suvs, however putting belts on buses would inpose greater dangers, such as older children using them as weapons to hit other children, the fact that if there were w serious collision who is going to help te children get undone if the driver is injuried which in more cases than not the driver is the more seriously injuried in a serious crash. Its common sense, if you think about the pros and cons, and the accident to serious injury or death ratio, yes there will be serious accidents but more common in a regular vehicle, if those people would just stay off the phone and stop texting we would have a much safe drive every day
i ride the bus to school and there are three set bealts per seat it was probaly just back in the days when they didnt have sealt belts in the bus
Every school bus I have ever ridden on in my life has had seatbelts. No one ever used them, but they were there.
I hate seeing seat belts on school buses. It’s a classic example of how science can do all the studies in known creation to disprove something, and people are too stubborn, too rooted in preconceived notions to listen.
There have been many studies run on seat belts and school buses, and nearly every one of them has come up with the same result: it does not help in the time of a crash. At all. Whatsoever. School buses were designed specifically to be safe without seat belts. Why? Because no child, at any age, would use them. Honestly, as if you don’t feel restricted enough in those seats, why not slap on an extra buckle that doesn’t even do anything?
I know that safety comes first in everything you do but the school bus seat belt thing it really busted . Ok sooo I am 14 and even if you put seat belts on the bus we wont wear them . Even if you tell us to because us being teens and in high school we are not going to keep a lame seat belt on . . . even though it’s safe. . . sooo its a waste of time and money . : ) Have a nice lifeeee !
the school busses at my school have seat belts. NO ONE uses one. school busses were designed to be safe without them
I have seen a lot of people commenting on here who say that seat belts should be an option for bus riders. However, seat belts would be a huge extra cost so, if they were to put seat belts in all buses the kids should be required to wear them. Also, not only for the cost but this would be a much safer option than no seatbelts and might even save lives!
In my area they now have a seat belt (shoulder type) for the driver,but not passengers. I never rode a bus to school until my high school years,b4 that I was in walking distance. Just one block.
Now back to the question, just how can the driver make sure that 50-70 riders are all wearing belts ? What if 3 ppl have to sit in a seat ? I’ts almost impossible to see that all passengers are restrained.Also as said, the passengers are safer than the driver iin case of an accident,unless the bus rolls over, then the belts don’t do much good.
This reminds me of a sub we used to have in middle school…everyday we’d go over this big speed bump and when she drove she always hit the gas just as we came to it. Everyone on the bus would go flying and come down laughing.
I say no to seat belts. Dumb idea.
Who’s going to enforce the wearing of the seat belts? The bus driver? I would much rather the bus driver spend his/her time and efforts to protect the kids from the dangers of bullying. From the stories I hear, bullying on the bus is a much bigger problem than injuries from bus accidents. Statistically speaking, a child is much more likely to get hurt or killed riding in their own parents car then they are on the school bus. But bullying is a real problem and can cause life-long scars. In a time when school funds are dwindling across the US, schools don’t need to waste time and money on something as statistically insignificant as seat belts.
It would be MORE dangerous to buckle children on a school bus! It has already been pointed out that the impact of a crash is much less substantial when inside of a school bus. However, the biggest reason a school bus should not have seatbelts (with the exception of special circumstance) is the danger of being trapped. In the event of an emergency, children panic, no matter how many times they go through emergency evacuation drills. A panicked child will have a much more difficult time unbuckling a seatbelt. In certain cases, it might be nearly impossible, such as if the bus were to flip over and the child was dangling upside down. The decision to evacuate a school bus is taken very seriously. Normally the safest place for a child is INSIDE of the school bus, and yes, without a seatbelt.The most frightening circumstances are a fire or being stuck on railroad tracks and having such a small window of time to evacuate. Seatbelts would dramatically increase the time it takes to unload children. Keep in mind that many school buses carry between 50-70 passengers at once. With that tiny window of opportunity to save the children from danger, someone will surely be lost in the process. Please, try to trust the people who make laws regarding your children’s safety. There are so many factors that go into these regulations. Not all rules seem to make complete sense, but it honestly it is for the safety of your children’s lives.
Well seat belt will not work on buses till they resesign the seats . They will have to become more like airplane or car front seats . You can put seat belts on a bench . even rolercoaster seats are better designed the most bus seats. I would like to see it more like a racing seats as you set down in them. but then you would have some people that would not fit (to small or big for the seat design) .
This is an interesting topic, and I see a lot to comment on.
First of all, anyone complaining that getting a license to drive a bus is easy needs a reality check. When my mom got her CDL to drive a bus about 10 years ago, she had to take several tests and pass a road test. Additionally, she and other bus drivers in TX are required by law to attend a workshop every three years in order to keep their license.
Second, driving a bus with 40 or more kids with no help can be a difficult task. I rode the bus for several years and have seen firsthand how difficult enforcing discipline can be on the bus. The bus driver has to concentrate on driving as well as maintaining order, and there is usually no one to assist in disciplining children. Parents want children home in a timely manner, and expecting the driver to stop for every little thing is unrealistic and often impossible. A driver does what he or she can. Parents are still responsible for their children, and must teach them how to behave on the bus.
In regards to the actual issue at hand, seat belts on buses, there are definitely pros and cons. If students are required to wear seat belts and there is someone to help the driver enforce the rule, then they could aid in maintaining discipline as well as provide greater safety during a crash. However, for the belts to be effective, they would need to be the lap/shoulder belt combinations adjusted to fit smaller frames.
On the other hand, seat belts could definitely complicate things during the event of an evacuation. The belts could slow the amount of time a person takes to get out of a seat, and there is always the risk that a belt could get jammed.
my school district is so poor, they cant afford bus services… problem solved
Coming from a bus driver, I think seat belts would not benefit students if in an accident. If there were a situation for an emergency evacuation how would it be possible to get all of these children out of the bus safely. Especially if the driver was not able to help in the situation. This is why it is very important to sit properly on a bus.
Also seatbelts can cause harm… They can easily be used as a weapon to hit someone with. Causing more injury
I believe that children should have to wear seat belts. Iv only been on a bus once in my life. Im homeschooled now. but lot my friends ride a bus. And i dont want them getting hurt.
trains dnt have belts either, i wunder y?
I personally think that there should be seat belts on a bus. One it would keep the kids safe. If there is an accident, there is nothing to prevent the children from flying out of their seats. It would also keep the kids seated and then they would stand up while the bus was moving.
I know my friend took me round her house once so i rode on the bus with her 2 her house and on the bus there wasn’t any seatbelts and people sat on a 3 seater row with 10 people. everyone was shouting playing music while i was just simpy sitting there terified after we got off i asked my friend if the bus was always like that and she said yere we never where seat belts we trust our driver!
I remember when I was in grade school there was a kid who was standing in the back of the bus while it was moving and the driver had to make an abrupt stop. The boy ended up literally flying all the way to the front and crashing into the console at the very front. His entire back was black and blue when he came back to school. The bus driver can’t stop a child from standing up but it would be less of a problem if they all had to put on their seat belts before the trip began. I don’t buy that safety talk. Children are always slighted when it comes to school in the United States. Truth is, the US is too cheap to put in seat belts or have bigger roomier buses. When a bus topples over, you are talking about a bunch of bodies hitting top and bottom, top and bottom AND each other. With seat belts, they would be hanging upside down and right side up for the duration of the tumbling, remaining in their seats. Sounds a heck of a lot safer to me! God bless school bus drivers though! They drive safer than truck drivers and it shows in the stats of school bus accidents.
I’m in highschool and the other day we had bus drills, someone on the bus asked if we actually got into an accident if the bus seats would really help us our/keep everyone safe, and the bus driver said not really. Our buses at school HAVE seatbelts, although were not allowed to use them because “if we got in an accident you wouldnt be able to unhook it fast enough so theyd have to use a seatbelt cutter.”
After reading the believable explanation by an actual bus driver, I take my uneducated opinion back.
Well, yes, but how will they help? With or without a seatbelt, you will fall forward in a crash. Plus, what if there is a fire? What if you’re in a panic and can’t get it off? I don’t think buses need seatbelts.
Seat belts are horrible. Fortunately I live where I don’t need a car. When I do wear them they choke across my neck and I can’t move. So I wear them but I hold the shoulder strap away from my body.
When I was in school we had newer buses, they were bluebirds and the model year was 2000 or so. We didn’t have seatbelts on our buses, they ended up adding a few for the younger kids in the few front seats. The buses newer than that had 6 big seats in the front that had 2 seatbelt seats in one seat, not sure about the newer models after that. But everyone on our bus was fine, thankfully we had a good driver, so I would say no seatbelts shouldn’t be required. Buses are expensive enough as it is, ones with seatbelts would be way more.
….wait what? My school buses all had seatbelts, we just weren’t required to wear them. I mean, how is one bus driver, who is supposed to DRIVE, going to be able to make sure kids keep their seatbelts on anyway?
I could care less
Let’s boogie.
Seat belts seem the common sense thing to do. But in the event of an accident involving a ruptured fuel tank, I’m afraid there be little chance of survival.
I went to school and some buses had seatbelts and I thought they were totally pointless! I still do.. School buses have optimum safety rules on the road, cars especially look out for school buses and i believe compartmentalization works. In NC buses only go 45 miles per hour and activitiy buses go 55. Most school buses now have seat belts in the front 3 seats for the younger children. In the emergency of a crash, fire, or such, seatbelts can be a hazard for a vehicle with so many people in it. It would be chaotic for everyone to quickly get the safety device off and exit the bus. What if someones seat belt gets stuck? Their screwed because they will have to wait until every child gets safely off the bus and THEN it is the drivers job to assist. Are seatbelts REALLY necessary? No, they are not a bad idea at all. If anything, I believe school buses should have seatbelts, but be totally optional. Just my take on things!
Its a tough question to answer. I’ve always wondered why there were no seat belts on buses. You have to consider all the crap kids have to lug to school everyday and then sometimes they sit 2 maybe 3 to a seat. I agree that the children wouldnt be safe from a rollover crash but I’ve never heard of a bus moving fast enough to actually roll over. Slide maybe. I mean if they say its safe then we should take their word for it. I just dont think it’d be a logical thing to do.
I’m all for adding seat-belts if they also put a large hunting next to every seat – so every child can cut their seat-belt in case of fire.
Also, I’m not sure it’s possible to enforce seat-belt wear to kids on a bus. The driver is driving, so he can’t really bother about what the kids are doing.
Do you know what happens to kids or teenagers who decide to show off to their friends by removing their seat-belt? They STAND, so all their friends can see they have removed their seat-belt.
Finally this will put a huge strain on bus drivers for several reasons:
1) In case of an accident and a child removed their seat-belt, the driver will be held responsible. Only at the end of a lengthy lawsuit will he (perhaps) be let off the hook (and he may have to quit his job because parents no longer trust him even if he was acquitted).
2) If the bus catches fire, the driver (as someone previously said) may have to choose which child to save and which child to let die. That’s just a horrible responsibility to put on someone. Those are bus drivers we are talking about, not soldiers used to watching people die and making such decisions.
3) Whether a child was not wearing his seat-belt or the driver only had time to save one child but could not save another, families will turn against the driver. Courts will hear arguments like “The driver should had stopped the bus in the middle of the road and forced our child to put his seat-belt back on”, “The driver should had unbuckled our child first because she was closer to him”, “The dirver should had tried saving our child first because the child he saved had worse injuries and may not have survived anyway”, or “The driver should had tried saving our child first because she was younger, while the child he saved was older and may have been able to get his seat-belt off on his own”.
I don’t think drivers should be put through insane lawsuits because grieving families can’t think clearly and want to blame someone (not to mention the risk that good people could end up in jail), and I don’t think any country needs school-bus drivers who suffer from PTSD because they were given too many responsibilities for one person to handle and had to choose which child to let die.
Also, if that job becomes so bad, nobody will want that job, and in the end we’ll need to lower the standards of hiring school-bus drivers in order to find people for the job. We’ll end up with drivers who don’t know what a speeding limit is or who have been serving time for assault.
Now I don’t know if compartmentalization is any safer, but replacing one problem with another is not a solution.
totally the you always bounce around when you hit a pothole or a speed bump it’s a great idea
So you people think that because the kids are in a compacted seat, that might save their lives, Tell me why do Tractor Trailers drivers are required to wear seat belts. Isn’t the truck big enough?
They still need seat-belts. What happens if the bus crashes and topples over upside-down? Closely packed seats won’t protect the kids from that. Why didn’t they factor that into their decision?
Im in 9thh grade right now, & the bus i went on now has seatbelts in the front, but not in the back, which i think is a good idea. Because those who dont feel safe can use them, & others who dont can sit in the back, which everyone always dreams about ! or at least in middle school they did! aha
School buses should have seat belts because what if the bus overturns or gets rear-ended badly? This compartmentalization crap won’t do anything for a rear end wreck or an overturn. School Buses should have seat belts.
…. Seat belts are not required, because the size of the buss is no where near the size of a car that you use every day.. If someone rear ended a bus, the kids would hardly feel it… And if they were hit by something Eg. A train… The last thing they will have to worry about is seat belts:P
Even if the buss trip’s and topples over, unless the buss is rolling down a hill, either way how are the kids going to get out of their seat belts, they have to unhook them and STILL fall to the ground.
The buss driver is required to wear a seat belt in the buss, much like tractor trailer drivers because if they get in an accident they are going thru the front window… Where as the kid’s will hit a padded seat, maybe break a few bones if they try to brace for the impact ….
I think the bad a seatbelt causes on a bus outweighs the good, mostly like mentioned in case of fire etc.
The fact of the matter is they test this, this argument has been going on for YEARS.. and they put busses thru tests just as they do your car seat belts.. and the findings did not warrent seat belts on school buses.
Well, my bus has seatbelts, but we don’t have to wear them. I think it’s great that way.
I’ve heard on the news that a car crashed into a school bus. The car that crashed into the school bus was a drunk driver. The bus flipped and officials believed that if there were seat belts and if they were worn, the kids would have minor bruises and non-life threatening injuries.
Hi-I was just thinking about that the other day. I think there definitely should be seat belts on school buses. I think it’s insane. I haven’t looked up the statistics so I’m not sure on the number of school bus accidents where seat belts could have saved lives, but I think all moving vehicles should have seat belts.
I think its a horrible idea to not have seatbelts in buses. Mine didn’t have any. We would slide all over when taking a wide turn. There is nothing to stop us from falling out of our seats into the walkway nor flying up and hitting the ceiling. There were many cases a large bump would make me hit the ceiling.
It’s better to teach kids young that seatbelts are good and safe.
Then we’d have less teenagers choosing to not wear seatbelts because ‘theyre uncomfortable’ or ‘they constrict me’ or ‘i dont like them’.
Its a matter of our kids and safety and compartmentismblahblah bull isn’t cutting it.
i don’t know about you, but the buses i rode always had seat belts. but no one ever used them.
my father is always talking about how he hates schoolbuses not having seatbelts, but i realy don’t see why they should have them. school busses are a rolling tank, and if you get hit by a car or eve a truck, it isn’t going to effect who is inside the bus that much.
school buses do have seat belts… i ride the bus to and from school like everyday and we have seat belts but we dont wear them….
Not having seat belts also helps because you can cram more kids in seat if you have to.
Also, the very first row of seats usually has seat belts, although no one uses them.
I don’t think there should be seatbelts. First of all, there’s already the “compartmentalizationeven”, and if there were seatbelts, do you actually think the kids would wear them? There would also be the “money” factor, and besides, school buses are already ridiculously safe. The drivers have to follow special procedures in order to be as safe as possible, and whenever drivers see a schoolbus, they all try to drive as carefully as possible. Almost no people at all have died on school buses, and if they had seatbelts, the death rate honestly wouldn’t change very much.
I’m in the eight grade and as much as I love talking to my friends on the bus seatbelts are there for a reason. To save your life, which to me sounds like a pretty big need when you’re driving around a bunch of kids. I mean when I hit bumps we fly two feet in the air. In my city there was a crash last year with a student youth group riding on a bus in my town. Almost every single person got injured, and 5 kids flew out open windows of the bus when it rolled. One girl went into a coma and died a couple months later. One was fine. But the third child got crushed by the bus when it rolled over on top of him. They practically had to scrape him off the side walk and put mush in his casket. I bet a seatbelt doesn’t sound so bad and expensive to his parents,
Well I’m kind of an old guy here…back in the 1950′s I rode around in those buses built by Crown. I can tell you they are heavy and built like a tank. So I don’t think you would get thrown around if it hit something.
Living in Turkey we see some horrific accidents on the TV. Recently a minibus carrying schoolchildren crashed into a tree; even though the minibus suffered little damage, 14 children on board were killed as they were thrown out of the vehicle. Seat belts would have saved most of them.
Our children are carried to school in our company’s minibuses; they have seat belts and the drivers are under strict instructions to remind the passengers before they move off. But this makes us feel that our children are cared for and safer than others.
May God protect all of our children and give them an accident-free life.
Unless the schools find a way to make the buses less crowded, (my school has 3 to a seat veryyy often.) I think seatbelts would be horrible. .___.; the kids who are on the ends would be hurt.
When i first read(past tense) the question i was like yes! but as i went through some of the comments im like maybe.People that are saying yes to seatbelts on school buses i disagree. I agree with the people that say no to seat belts i agree with so i am with the no seatbelt on school buses.
6th grade, i am glad no seatbelts, kuz then we couldent use the “underground railroad”, a path beneath the seats for sixth graders who were cheated out of their reserved seats in the back.
The seat-belts were always pretty useless, it seemed to me. Now that I’m in 9th grade, the “safety” gets even more ridiculous – they’re piling too many kids on one bus! At least 3 people at any given time are standing up, because there are not enough seats, and since we’re high school size, it’s not like we can squeeze 3 to a seat. The seat-belts on school buses are a waste of time and resources, maybe instead of adding seat-belts we should be hiring better drivers (you know, ones that aren’t going to be fired mid-year for failing a drug test) and working on putting an appropriate number of kids on one bus.
I think a bigger concern should be screening for the drivers of the buses. The man who currently drives the bus that picks up kids on my road drives way too fast and on the wrong side of the road! There must have been some kids rolling into the aisle the other day, because he had to swerve very quickly back into his own lane to avoid smashing into my car. He was going at least forty (my road has a 35 mph limit), and half the bus was on my side of the road. Had he hit me, I would’ve been dead or seriously injured.
Besides this whackadoodle, I’ve had a few bus drivers who just couldn’t keep the students under control. They jumped around (hitting me with backpacks and once nearly hitting me with a wad of spit), shouted, hit people in front of and behind them, made-out, made rude gestures at passing cars, and moved from seat to seat like they were playing musical chairs. These drivers never said a word about the behavior, let alone practicing discipline!
It is possible to make students on buses behave properly and actually sit in their seats; I’ve seen it in action! There was one bus driver who made anyone who spoke above a whisper sit in the seat behind his so he could keep an eye on him. None of the kids liked it, of course (including me), but we would all have been properly in our seats had there been a collision!
Basically, I don’t think it should be seatbelts that are required; a strict bus driver can do just as much good! Seatbelts wouldn’t be worn anyway if the driver didn’t enforce it.
Through out my child hood, or for the most part until I could drive myself, I was forced to ride the horrid school bus. My county’s buses are actually equipped with seat belts although it is not required to wear them.
I know that when my mother was younger, they did not have seat belts so I suppose it was a recent adjustment made by the county due to complaints.
I find that having the seat belts are beneficial in a way. As I remember having many hyper children on my bus whom would have to be restrained for the ride. So I guess drivers used them more for restraint than for protection.
I think they should have seat belts and that they would not add any protection is a load of crap. For example, if a vehicle pulled out in front of a school bus and the driver of the bus turned sharply to the left to avoid the vehicle, then all students on the left side of the bus would fall out of their seats and then they would have no protection from any collision.
As far as other comments regarding seatbelts and fire, that is also hogwash anyone capable of putting a seatbelt on is perfectly capable of taking a seatbelt off. And if you consider how rarely fires brake out in wrecks compared to how frequently wrecks occur, you would see the benefits of wearing a seatbelt out weigh the potential consequences.
While seat belts on school buses may seem like “common sense”, we need to remind ourselves that the laws of physics trump “common sense” (actually parental paranoia, but I digress) any day.
Seat belts do not actually lessen the impact force of a crash. They prevent you from smashing your head against the steering wheel/dashboard/car seats in front of you, and/or being ejected from the vehicle. They don’t magically circumvent inertia.
In the event of a head-on crash, a child hitting against the seat in front of them will actually suffer less damage due to the impact being spread over a wider area of their body instead of a sharp, slicing strap. In the event of a rollover, seat belts still would not protect the child’s head from smashing against the window, and could even become a hazard, trapping children, cutting off circulation, etc.
Then there’s the fact that most bus drivers either cannot or don’t even bother trying to keep the kids in line, much less ensure that their belts are buckled.
I feel it’d be more of a benefit to take the money required for seat belts and put it into things that will actually benefit the students, such as more art and music, new lab equipment, etc.
Yea…Now There Is Only Some buses That Have Seat belts…Most Don’t! I Think it Is Better To Have Seat belts Because They Make Your Ride/trip safer (I know it’s annoying but have to live with it…)
Some Seat belts Don’t Actually Make Your Ride Safer But i Think Most Should…I Hope Technology Becomes More Useful In Life
BTW Great Question…
As a school bus driver…………Absolutely NOT, no seat belts on the bus. We drive all schools, Highschool, Middle school , and elementary. The H.S. and Middle schoolers can and will play with them, to hit their friend with the metal buckle, tie them together, tie their friends up etc……..so can the elementary but my biggest concern with the elementary is them not being able to unbuckle quick enough to escape a situation & I am only one person to 50 – 60 kids. By the way the bus size has grown from 59 passenger to 77 passenger in order to save money. One driver with a potentially filled 77 kids….again NO SEAT BELTS!
Personally, I think it depends largely on where you live and what-not. For instance, in an area like where I live it would benefit to have seatbelts on our buses. The chances of a head-on collision are very, very slim because the school is out in the middle of no-where. The roads are horribly done and almost never re-paved. Instead, they put down gravel and oil, if they do anything at all. On top of that, it’s almost always winter and living in the vallies of hills and cliffs, the ice takes forever to melt. The road conditions are perfect for rolling/flipping a bus or sending it over the cliff. And compartmentalization doesn’t help with that. So seatbelts would be very beneficial on the buses of my school. (But due to the cost of the buses and the size of my school, they would never get installed or bought.)
However, for relatively-flat land or areas where there are very few chances for a slick road, seatbelts are probably a little too much as most accidents would be head-on collisions.
Nam nut, RTFA before posting
2nd, my school buses have always had seatbelts, and no one has ever used them
I think I’d put seat belts in a school bus to make a kid sit still. I don’t know about you guys but when i had to ride the bus I was never really sitting properly which probably could have hurt me if we had crashed. but on public transportation buses with the way most are set up seat belts could cause more harm (because the seats are sideways) interesting little tidbit.
first, all states should require seat bealts on all buses, its the childs choice to put it on or not. this getting the kids off bus is bull crap. thats jsut an excuse.
second, our school buses in ga also let students stand during the ride to school, which again is unethical and just not right. that also should be brought up as well.
okay im a freshmen in high school. yea i’ll honestly admit that i could careless about seat belts on a bus, no one would wear them anyways so why waste the money?even though bus drivers would try to enforce it it woulldn’t work, high schoolers and even middle schoolers and even elementary kids are beginning to careless and not listen either! yea little buses have them but still; when i was in the 7th grade a bus driver explained to me why they dont have the seat belts on the long buses, kids they would hit and slap each other with them and the metal part would hit each other in the head, bus drivers they cant see that far back and concentrate onvthe road and not getting into an accident and kids would get skull fractures and what not and parents would sue the town, also just saying bout if there was a fire?how are u supposed to be able to get off safetly if you cant get it undone?really?yea theres the indain kid (no affense dont remember his nsme) that recently got killed while on the way to a feildtrip or something somewhere and the bus got into an accident and that spark on the whole put seat belts on buses thing!but still no ones gonna wear them, or atleast on my bus kids wouldnt!yes i do care about my safety but the seat belts are over the top even on short buses no one wears them the only ones that do are the bus drivers that bring their kids on and put them in the car seat!so why waste the money if kids could get hurt even more!?like really?yea ik im on ly n high school but still, nd dont ragg on me but stil its the truth!besides most dream to sit in the back of the bus since like the second grade hah sounds sad but its the truth u couldnt wait till 4th grade to sit back there and then in middle school in the 8th grade so u could sit in the back and boss everyone around and feel all that and besides all we do is stand joke and fool around so hah yea!
only cool people don’t wear seat belts
In my school years that I rode the bus, K-12, (yeah I’m sad and never learned how to drive in high school) all the school busses I have ridden–this is as far back as the mid 90s–had seatbelts, but we weren’t required to use them or anything. The school I went to didn’t own their own busses; they contracted with a company, which was Laidlaw but later became First Student. The presence of seatbelts at times was a hazard because the belts would be in the aisles (those belts were lat belts) and people would trip over them if they were not careful.
Every school bus I’ve ever been on has always had some form of seatbeat. It was never “cool” to use them though.
I ride the bus, and think it’s big enough to be safe. Unless you drive over a landmine, that thing’s not going to get nailed hard enough to cause serious damage.
I’ve always wondered that, also. I think having seat belts have too many cons for the government and schools.
1. It would cost much more to have, fix, and replace seat belts.
2. It would take much more time to make sure all the kids are secure in their seat belts before the bus leaves.
To sum it all up, it would just cost too much money, time, and energy. It would just be a burden on the government/school system.
That’s my opinion and I approve this message.
I always thought school buses should have belts, too, and not just for wheelchairs and special needs people, but ALL people. Just like carseats and airplanes, if there must be a carseat in a car, why not an airplane, it’s got seats, too!
My school bus has seatbelts, and nobody (except me) wears them unless the driver says.
School buses did not have seatbelts when I went to school, which was a long time ago, relatively speaking. I know that public transit buses do not have seatbelts and instead have bars for standing passengers. I am surprised that school buses do not have that feature for students who have to stand.
No seat-belts!
I rode the bus, without seat-belts, from kindergarten until I was a sophomore in highschool, and then every friday to the football games, (I was in drill team) until I graduated. Not ONE person was ever harmed in a school bus at my school.
Think of how often you hear of school bus crashes, despite thousands of them driving every morning and afternoon picking up and dropping off kids from school. Far less than cars, despite here being a ton of them driven every day for decades.
Also, Mamianka, comparing a van to a school bus is crazy. They are nothing alike and large vans are notorious for flipping over, unlike school buses.
I think buses are just too big for that its un necessary.
Humm I did not know that most school buses didn’t have seat belts. Thats probably because my bus that I take everyday has seatbelts in it!!
Well.
Yes and no.
Mostly yes because it is an important safety feature, and it teaches kids to be buckled up at all times.
No, because I’m selfish, and I like turning around to talk to my friends on the bus. ;p
ok well here is where i stand,
“compartmentalization” who would to a certain degree…if your on a back road goin 15 mph to get a kid 500 ft down the road then ya u hit sumthing the seat in front of you will do a nice job cushioning you (this has happened to me), however if your goin 60 on a highway and another car looses control and u run head on into another car on the other side then compartmentalization wont do much in that u will either get thrown out of the seat, run so hard into the seat in front of u and snap your neck, or have a random fat kid land on you and squish you. however for most busses its more realistic to be goin 15 on a back road.
next IF busses had seat belts then kids would be forced to be sitting straight forward and only be avle to talk to the kid next to him…now last time i check not many people have one kid that they want to talk to that sits with them…the whole point of a bus is to have the ability to move around and turn and talk with friends, and with seatbelts that is eliminated. Also (from personal experience) when there are seatbelts on the bud kids usually sit on them and dont use them and they become uncomfortable and sometimes they will even start whipping other kids with them (haha i wont say which side of it i was on ;D) and that also doesnt seem like its worth paying that much more for something that may turn into a negative factor.
so in turn im not saying seatbelts are good or bad on busses, i am simply stating that i do not think they are worth the time or funds to use them
thank you and contact me if you wish!
Another interesting wrinkle Mike: seatbelts lead to accidents. I know it’s counter intuitive, but when they did a study it was actually found that when seatbelts were added to cars in the 60′s, the number of accidents skyrocketed. The number of collisions involving pedestrians stayed the same, but the number of collisions involving other cars nearly tripled. the reason is because drivers wearing seatbelts are more confident that they won’t get hurt, and therefore more likely to drive unsafely. If you think about it, it makes sense, but we’ve had seatbelt propaganda shoved down our throats for so long it’s nearly impossible to believe that we could drop the accident rate by 75 percent just by taking the seatbelts OUT of cars.
the buses that i rode in had seat belts when i was little but i didn’t wear them…i think that buses should have seat belt in case the bus does tip over and i think that the seatbelt should go across your body not only your legs.
Well “mike” you see the thing about buses are that there is no telling the amount of people that will be on the bus.me myself.i have to sit 3 to a seat.some don’t.and when i was in elementary my school was close to where i lived.and some people would get off at the first bus stop.and they would rush off the bus.most kids don’t sit in order for the bus stops.so seat belts would take more time for the kids to get off. And yet another problem with seat belts on a bus is,the safety. The seat belts,remember,do tighten when immediatly stopped.and the kids on the bus differ in size. Another thing about it is i know they are protective in case of crash,but you have to remember,there’s over 100 kids possibly on a bus.if the bus crashes,kids are gonna be trying to get off. Now with a car, it’s just how many people the car will hold in it. You need to remember,younger kids tend to scream and yell when scared. Therefore i think seat belts on the bus are a bad idea.
I have been on school buses where the front seats are not very well “compartmentalized”, they simply had a short piece of plastic. Those kids would not be safe.
I would have preferred a seat belt. I would have worn it and asked about it while a child. I was told the reason the schools don’t want seat belts is because then they wouldn’t be able to sit 3 to a seat. One of my buses was so crowded that the younger kids sat three to a seat and some high school students stood behind the back seats and in the aisles.
I never practiced evacuation and I rode the bus at several schools (I moved a lot).
The risk of fire is smaller than the risk of the bus turning or going off an overpass.
If a kid is too small to unbuckle their own seat belt then they are small enough to fly into the aisle, so that argument is out.
Besides, how many times have you heard about a bus accident where the kids had to immediately evacuate due to fire or other danger. Most of the time kids stay on the bus until a safe place can be found. But kids have died in bus crashes that they may have survived with belts on.
I ride the bus for two hours everyday, in the country. Having no seatbelts is fine; The odds of a bus getting hit, etc, are slim.
I think that the seats should be turned backwards and a bus monitor (actual person) should be in the rear of the bus to watch the kids. This would leave the driving to the driver without being distracted by kids.
Our Main Bus (I catch 2 different buses) has seat belts but no one wears them. Our other one doesn’t and the kids just walk up and down and the bus driver doesn’t care at all.
I think school buses really should have seatbelts. I get the compartmentalization thing, but it will not save those kids who are up in the aisles and playing around, goofing off while the bus is in motion. Bus drivers rarely have any kind of authority against the kids on the school bus. Usually there are 30 or better kids per one adult. I rode the bus from kintergarten until my senior year in high school. I know for a fact kids do not sit in their seats. Furthermore, I was in an accident on the school bus once. A drunk driver hit the bus and I was admitted to the hospital with a concussion from smacking my head off of the seat and bad whiplash. Had to wear a neck brace and everything. There were also 3 other children that had to go to the hospital too. They aren’t as safe as school officials will have you think. I know I for one will continue to drive my children to school until school buses with seatbelts are provided.
I think they should have seatbelts, regardless. Having special seats and less space between seats certainly helps, but in my opinion there is no real substitute for seat belts; they should be required in all school buses.
My Kid Used to take the school bus.No Seatbelts. When going on excusions.Seatbelts. Its dumb.
And I agree with Cassi. There is always gonna be a kid or two running around the middle of the bus.But atleast protect the smart kids.
no, seatbelts shouldn’t be on buses. have you met any middle school students recently? the only thing that would come of them is a couple kids getting their teeth knocked out by their friends. if seatbelts are on buses, what makes the kids use them? and, to a previous comment, how is a seatbelt going to prevent you from smacking your head against the seat in front of you?
its a hard one :s yes seat belts would be great, on the other hand hat if a fire? maybe they could have grade 7 n 8′s sit with the younger children and if a fire were to happen they could help the younger kids get off. cause really how many fires do you hear of compared to aciedents. i believe there is more busses rolling off curbs, crashes and so forth then there are fires. i’m lucky we dont need to worrie about this cause we live right beside the school, but just as any parent i do not ant to see other children get hurt, n field trips aswell. talk about the money it will cost, I am from canada and we never used to have to pay for books and pens or any of that yet we do no and our taxes have raised ha ha, i think they can afford the seat belts, if not i would like to know were our tax money is going?
I am 35 years old and from Ct. and we had seatbelts when I was a kid, i think all buses should have them,I live in Texas now and they are talking about putting them on now, because if all the accidents latley with busses. It should of been something manditory, especially when there are laws saying you have to wear one!
My school bus has seat belts, but NO ONE uses them. My bus is packed and there are 4 people in the 3 seaters and 3 people in the 2 seaters.
Seatbelts on buses are silly, they’re just there to fulfill the needs of insurance companies and bureaucrats, o if the worst case scanrio where to happen then they know exactly who to point the blame on.
The buses we had used to have the belt on the lap, not around your torso. So if the driver used to suddenl brake, our whole upper body was to go leaping forwards. Apparantly this was “safe”, we asked our teachers why this was allowed and why we only had a belt across out lap, we were told that if the bus rolled over the belt would stop us from landing on our heads on the roof. Like that would ever happen.. I honestly think the only reason why we had these belts across our laps was because they kept the kids from moving around while the bus was in motion. They simply wanted us to keep our asses on the seats.
My 3yo even has to sit in a toddler car seat on the school bus (they’re busing him 26 miles to a different school district that has a preschool program for children with disabilities – he has a speech delay but is physically fine).
I don’t really care whether school buses have seat belts or not – although I’d like it if the option were available for kids who *want* to wear a seat belt (in the car I tend to feel ‘naked’ if I don’t have my seat belt on – everybody seems to think I’m nuts).
Buses are higher up, nothing could happen that would really hurt the kids.
I always questioned this as well. And the comment about nothing could happen to hurt kids, that is so untrue.
Many people die in bus crashes all the time.Many are injured.
I ride the bus to and from school and it always makes me wonder everytime I take a step onto the bus: What if there’s a crash today?
Now, I’ve never been in an accident before, but I fear of being in one.
Since it’s the rainy season here, the roads are slippery and we have a higher chance of rolling over or being in a crash. The drivers of the bus have protection when the bus decides to play pinball, but the students don’t. When the driver is being jerked around, the bus riders are being thrown around. At least, that’s how I see it.
……What the hell happened to the term “better safe then sorry” I mean seriously if it is even the slightest bit more safe for “children” then DUH! there should be seat belts on buses.
P.S
Thanks for answering that question man I always wondered that too when I rode the bus.
All of the buses in my school district have seatbelts on them. I used to wear them in kindergarten and first grade, but because they don’t require us to wear them, no one ever did. In fact, they just end up getting in the way and I wish we didn’t have them.
There are seatbelts on my school bus, but we are not required to wear them & no one does.
I ride the bus to school everyday. First of all, none of the 40+ kids on my bus wear the seatbelts. They just don’t. Also, in the 8 or more years I’ve ridden the bus there’s been not one accident. I know that we could possibly get hurt or whatever on the bus if an accident occured, but what are the odds? I don’t know how much it matters if you have seatbelts on the bus, I’m sure most students won’t even think of wearing one.
i’m in middle school, and ever since i’ve started going to school, there have been seatbelts. never in my life has someone forgotten to tell me to wear a seat belt on a school bus. wow.
really, there are people saying that they’d rather not use or have seat belts? I was on the bus from grade one to grade eleven when my family moved into the town, and my bus ride every year, I saw need for seatbelts.
There were emergency exits, first aid gear, fire extinguishers, and the like, but it came down to one thing, “if you are knocked unconscious from a crash, then you are screwed because you can’t use any of them.” Buses should have the seatbelts that are now mandatory (the ones with the shoulder strap) to make sure that should a head on collision with another large vehicle occur, you won’t have anybody being thrown around. Compartmentalization doesn’t do much for protecting anybody thats moving around from seat to seat. It was something that I’d seen every day, back and forth, people moving around.
It might be the result of being in an area where the roads tend to be icy from late October to the middle of March or later,but seat belts would reduce any risk that you’d see.
i think their should be seat belts on schoolbuses but it ought to be the free choos of the rider if they want to wear them as in any case of seat belt laws i relize they protect the wearer but it should be their decion
I work at a school that has its own buses. We’ve had buses with seat belts for a few years and I love them. The kids get on the bus and know to put their seat belt on before the bus moves, it keeps the kids in their seats and it gives the parents peace of mind that their children will make it to school safety. For the pre school children that we have, we also have harnesses that straps them in- almost like a car seat.