Well...You know how I feel about school buses.
They are poorly designed. Poorly supervised. And...Many of the injuries and deaths are completely unavoidable.
Parents: Drive your own children to school and safely buckle them up in a properly fitted safety seat or belt.
Show me the stats that prove children are safer on a bus than driven by a **parent**, directly to and from school, and with the children are wearing seat belts.
You can't because they don't exist.
Next...You are likely able to find statistics showing that children are safer in a bus rather than being in a car ( with or without wearing seat belts),driven by **anyone**, at any time of the day. Of course this would include teens driving other teens ( we know how safe they are!).
Statistics like these aren't helpful to a parent trying to decide whether or not to allow their child to ride the bus.
Also...Emergency room physicians and surgeons across the nation will testify that of the 17,000 admission to hospital emergency rooms that many many many of these injuries ( and even deaths) would have been completely prevented by having seat restraints ( maybe similar to what is seen in amusement parks), better ( and often inexpensive) bus design, adult supervision in the back of the bus, and adult help with crossing the street.
Of course those 17,000 ER admissions do NOT include the visits to private physicians and dentists’ offices for more minor injuries.
You might not believe that little factoid about there being 17,000 ER admissions ever year due to school bus accidents.
I challenge you to do a Google on the words: school bus 17,000 hospital.
Oh....And, remember that this is a nation whose government goes nuts if a ***private*** industry has 1 part per 100 BILLION of some chemical in some food.
But...Hey! We all know that if school buses were made safer there would be less money for the teachers and their unions.