U.S. To Pay for Seat Belts on School Buses
MORRISVILLE, N.C. _ The nation’s top transportation official wants more students buckled up while riding school buses, but the numbers show children are already safer on the bus than off.
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters, promised Monday that federal highway safety dollars would be freed up for school districts that want to install seat belts on school buses.
But statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration show an average of 19 children are killed each year getting on and off the school bus. Most of those killed are children between 5 and 7 years old. The statistic shows that most of those children are killed by a passing vehicle or by the school bus itself. And statistics show that majority of the injuries occur to passengers in other vehicles.
In contrast, an average of seven school-age children nationwide die in school bus crashes each year.
“We see more fatalities outside the bus,” said Derek Graham, section chief for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s Transportation Services. “But more parents expect their children to be buckled on a bus.”
The major safety worry for some parents is the risk their children run at the bus stop or exiting the vehicle to walk home.
“The major concern lies while they’re waiting or getting off the bus,” said parent Michele Malik, whose two children ride the bus, one to an elementary school, the other to a magnet middle school. “But I do put safety belts at a close second.”
Peters, who rode a seat-belt-equipped bus Monday morning at Morrisville Elementary School, said adding seat belts would increase the safety on school buses. North Carolina transportation officials have been experimenting with seat belts on buses used at that Wake County school.
The federal official said proposed regulations from her agency would also require higher seat backs for new school buses, mandate seat belts on smaller buses and set a federal standard for states that opt to install seat belts on schools buses. She promised states could use Federal Highway Safety Money typically used for road improvements to offset the cost of installing school bus seat belts. This safety improvement would add $10,000 to the cost of each bus.
Peters’ announcement came just a few hours after a Granville County bus collided head-on with a car, seriously injuring both passengers in the car.
Granville County school spokeswoman Jan Allen said the school bus, which had high back seats, was damaged significantly on the outside. But inside, three children were injured _ one with a split lip, another with a swollen nose and a third with a cut above the eye.
“The bus performed well and protected the children,” Allen said. “The seats were high and each kid was contained in their little box.”
Although Peters encouraged districts to opt for installing the seat belts, the proposed regulation will not mandate school districts to install seat belts. It will leave the decision to each state.
“Each state knows best where they can spend the money,” Peters said. “I truly believe that this is a safety improvement that school districts ought to look at seriously.
The proposed federal regulation would require seat backs on school buses be raised from 20 inches to 24 inches, protecting taller passengers from being thrown over bus seats in accidents. This change could take effect as early as next year.
Public comments on the proposed regulations will be accepted for 60 days. To view the proposal, go to www.nhtsa.dot.gov
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(Staff writer Marti Maguire and news researcher Susan Ebbs contributed to this report.)
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(c) 2007, The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.).
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