Durango School District 9-R’s decision early this month to ban school bus travel over Red Mountain Pass, regardless of weather conditions, was a reminder of how seriously our local districts take the safety of students.
In doing so, 9-R joined many Colorado districts in avoiding school bus travel on the state’s highest, narrowest passes; using alternate routes takes longer and results in higher transportation costs, but safety is, rightly, the priority.
The Nov. 21 crash in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which killed six students and injured many more, has focused national attention on school bus safety. And in its wake, one question has been repeatedly asked but not satisfactorily answered: Why are seat belts not required on school buses?
There is no federal law requiring passenger restraints on school buses. Just six states – New York, California, Florida, New Jersey, Louisiana and Texas – require seat belts for all passengers. The National Safety Council and the American Academy of Pediatrics has called for their installation and use for years.
Statistics show that travel in school buses is very safe, and many bus manufacturers, state legislators and school administrators maintain the figures prove that school bus design, in which unrestrained passengers are protected by the surrounding materials as an egg cartoon is designed to surround and protect eggs, is adequate.
Advocates for seat belts, which nationwide include many parents who have lost children in school bus accidents, say the biggest barrier to installing belts on school buses is cost. Last year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, another advocate of seat belts on school buses, estimated that equipping one large school bus with seat belts would cost between $7,000 and $10,000. Those costs quickly add up for any district operating a fleet. It also makes skipping passenger restraints an attractive option when a district is planning to purchase buses.
But how do you calculate the real costs when a tragic accident occurs?
In 2014, a speeding school bus full of middle school children overturned and crashed into a light pole in Anaheim, California. It was an accident similar to the Chattanooga crash, yet no one was killed. A big difference was the California bus was equipped with seat belts and the students were using them, a fact noted by the National Transportation Safety Board in its report on the incident.
SafeGuard, a manufacturer of lap-and-shoulder belt systems for school buses, has posted a video clip of an actual rollover school bus accident on its website (www.safeguardseat.com/time-seat-belts-school-buses/).
The violence of the incident, and the speed with which every student on the right side of the bus is thrown to the other, colliding with other students, is breathtaking. It is also evidence that Durango District 9-R and the community at large were lucky that the Lightner Creek rollover bus accident on Nov. 17, 2015, was not closely followed by funerals.
That the students in that incident suffered only minor injuries is testament to the strength of construction of school buses. But it is also clear that seat belts make a school bus even safer.
Seat belts on school buses save lives, reduce injuries and improve student behavior while reducing driver distractions.
It is time for Colorado to join the woefully short list of states that require them.
