I used to do contract work with a school bus manufacturer and asked the same question. Management replied that they had no problem with installing seat belts in the buses but study after study (including government studies) showed that the kids were safer without them. So it was not a matter of cost.
There’s a big seat in front of the kids.
The only studies done have been are head-on collisions. Most school bus injuries are from roll overs as school buses are very top heavy.
Also...School bus injuries and deaths are compared to **all** travel in cars regardless of who is doing the driving and when. No studies have been done comparing the school bus with the parents driving the child to and from school with the child secured in a seat belt.
There are approximately 60,000/year admissions to the emergency room for school bus injuries. Nearly all could be prevented with seat belts and having an adult ( other than the driver) supervision in the back of the bus.
The saddest school bus injuries are when the book bag straps or clothing of a child is caught in the doors of the school buses and the child is dragged ( usually to their death.)
Finally,....School bus design is STUPID. There are rarely escape doors in the roof on the buses and this complicates rescue when the bus rolls over.
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Sorry! ...It is 17,000 admissions to the emergency room due to school bus injuries. Also...What about the injuries that never go to the ER but go directly to the dentist or pediatrician?
The following is from the article:
” The researchers’ data included injuries that didn’t stem from a crash, such as those occurring when a driver braked suddenly or made a sharp turn.
Based on that sample, gathered from the 66 hospitals monitored for injuries of all kinds, the researchers extrapolated that an average of 17,000 children per year were treated in emergency rooms all over the country for school-bus-related accidents in the three years studied.
Ten- to 14-year-olds had the highest proportion of such visits to an emergency room, at 43 percent of all the children with such visits in those three years. Children ages 5 to 9 represented the second-largest group, at 27.3 percent of emergency room visits. Strains and sprains accounted for the most injuries, at 33.4 percent, followed by contusions or abrasions, at 28.3 percent.
Most of the emergency room visits that occurred were in the two-month time period of September and October. The researchers hypothesized that back-to-school “anxiety and excitement,” coupled with new bus drivers, could lead to more accidents during that period.
The researchers’ numbers are much higher than those compiled by the Transportation Research Board, a division of the National Research Council, which provides independent research to the federal government. The board has estimated that there are 5,500 school-bus-related injuries to children as passengers per year.”
no way... no how....not having some sort of seat belt, shoulder strap, etc is better than having them....
if it were the "elderly" being driven around you best believe there would be not only seat belts, but seat warmers and blankets passed out....but school buses are just for those non voting citizens called children, so they are not important.