My daughter recently took a school bus trip that required a portion of it to occur on a freeway and yesterday she asked me a question which I did not have an answer for.
Her question had to do with why seatbelts were not required on a bus. I have to admit I did not have an answer to this simple question. My first thought was that the bus was so heavy relative to the car hitting it that there would not be any damage to people inside.
Of course we then wondered what would happen if another bus or a diesel hit it or it rolled off the freeway, etc. Then it would seem that seatbelts would be of some help.
So the question is why aren’t there seatbelts required on a bus–school or transit? Given all the effort in seatbelts, and airbags, etc for cars—seems that a large transit type vehicle would have the same if not more restrictive requirements.
It seems to me that the primary reason for seatbelts in passenger cars is to prevent the passenger from hurtling through the windshield. This isn’t so much of a problem with school buses, because in a collision the passenger will (assuming he or she is properly seated, of course) be propelled into the back of the nearest seat.
Being propelled into the back of the seat in front would almost certainly break bones I’d imagine. And that may not necesarily be what happens, the passenger could easilly be propelled to the front of the bus.
My guess is that buses are entered and exited so often, and the journeys per person being shorter, that having seatbelts would be impractical.
Statistically, bus travel is far safer than car travel. Of course, part of this reason is less high-speed journies; most accidents are low-speed collisions with little danger to bus passengers. But they also have far more rigorously-trained (and in most cases safety-aware) drivers, better maintainance records than private vehicles, etc.
One random googled statistic, from the Australian Bureau of Statistics: “students who use school buses are 7 times safer than going by private car, 31 times safer than walking and 228 times safer than cycling.”
Nonetheless, in the UK at least, seatbelts seem pretty much standard on modern coaches, and I’ve also seen them occasionally on public buses. The only times I’ve used them, however, is on long-distance trips - I know how much worse I drive after two hours at the wheel, and I’m sure that’s true for a coach driver too, even if he is still obeying regulations.
Another point - wearing of seatbelts on coaches where fitted is obligatory in some countries, France being the only one I can remember off the top of my head.
However, travel-sickness-realted vomiting would vastly increase. Trust me. Nearly threw up in front of my girlfriend’s mother after fifteen minutes on a rear-facing seat in a bus.
BTW there are buses with seat belts, just (it seems) not in the US. Situation here in Germany for long-distance buses: buses registered since since October 1999 must have (two-point) belts installed; passengers must wear seat belts (if provided) since 1 April [sic] of this year. The fine for not wearing the seat belt is 30 EUR but of course enforcement is onerous - looking through tinted bus windows into people’s laps and then stopping the bus to fine passengers just isn’t going to happen.
I drove a school bus for about six years while I was putting myself through college. Every so often, this question will rear it’s ugly head, courtesy of a concerned parent or a board school board. The first year I was driving a school bus, I asked my boss about the seat belt factor (or lack thereof). His response was that the kids were usually packed in the bus like marbles in a jar. Shake the jar full of marbles and they aren’t going far.
Another reason (more PC than the marble theory) is that, as a school bus driver, I went through a boatload of training (or bus load, rather). Depending on the company/school district, school bus drivers recieved more training than probably anyone else behind the wheel. Safety is highly stressed, supported and encouraged. I’ve never come across any place relating to school buses where safety wasn’t #1. Safer drivers means the driver is prepared to drive with an eye for his/her environments and other drivers, which means they’re more likely to avoid an accident.
After driving a few months, I realized the TRUE reason they’re aren’t seatbelts on school buses–As a school bus driver, the driver is responsible for everything which occurs on the bus. I’ve seen backpacks, pencils, shoes, jackets, etc. used as “weapons”, and hell would freeze over before I’d drive and look in my rear mirror to see students using seatbelts as weapons. The driver would also be responsible for ensuring that all students (I forget the official numbers legally allowed to ride the average school bus, but it’s around 45 high schoolers, and 112 elementary) are wearing seat belts. Suppose an accident occurs and students aren’t wearing seatbelts? The liability for the school district/bus company would be astronomical…I can’t imagine them taking on another risk factor.
About 20 years ago I heard about a pilot program conducted by a school system where they installed seatbelts on some of their buses. They concluded that more children were getting hurt. In the hands of an 8-year-old boy, a seatbelt turned out to be a weapon. (In other words, children were hitting each other with the seatbelts.)
When I was in fifth grade or so, we had seatbelts on the buses for all of a year - probably some similar pilot program. The next year they were gone. Guess they found them to be less than useful.
As the son of a Transportation Director for a school system, I know more about school buses than anyone should have to.
Basically, school buses don’t have seat belts (for the most part) because of how bus seats are designed. A school bus seat is designed as a compartment. The seatback of the next seat helps contain people and objects. This is another reason why the aisles need to be clear, since if there’s something outside the compartment, it won’t be contained.
Some school districts and even states are beginning to require seat belts. The problems with this are rather complicated. First off, there’s the need to retrofit old buses with restraint systems (expensive and time-consuming), especially since the average bus will be in service for 7-10 years. Also, there’s the issue of ensuring compliance with wearing the belts. Kids are notorious for doing things on the bus that they shouldn’t. Thirdly, part of the requirement is that belt cutters have to be accessible in emergencies. Since most cutters are only good for 1-2 belts, that’s 20-30+ cutters per bus. Also, they have to be reachable in emergencies while at the same time making sure that they can’t be used as weapons.
Seat belts on buses make little sense, as most bus accidents are minor, and in the event of a large-scale accident, they likely would not serve any purpose but to slow escape from the bus.
Rollovers are good examples of the need for seatbelts. As you can see from the above video, when a bus rolls over, bodies fly all over the compartment. Sometimes people are not so lucky as in the video, and are killed when flying about inside the bus, or when ejected out of the bus through its windows.
I’m also a bus driver. I would not swerve to miss a car. I once had a pickup roll a stop in front of me. I could swerve into a ditch or wipe him out. I went straight and would have knocked him into next week, except he barely managed to stop.
As the saying goes: mass times velocity equals right of way.
Busses are coming out with seat belts. So far, the use of the belt is optional. I cannot imagine a practical method of requiring belt use.