School bus seat belts issue heating up - continued
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By Joan Lowy
Reporter with Scripps Howard News Service . First published by
Scripps Howard News Service, original story title, "SCHOOL BUS ACCIDENTS
FOCUS ATTENTION ON LACK OF SEAT BELTS," 04/07/1999, Copyright �1999, All
Rights Reserved. Posted by permission from Scripps Howard News Service.
Scripps Howard News Service - story continues
According to the highway administration, there are an average of 11
deaths a year to pupils on board school buses -- a tiny number
considering that buses transport 23.5 million children a year to and
from school.
Indeed, there are twice as many deaths -- about 25 a year -- to children
outside buses, many of them run over by their own bus because they were
chasing paper that went under the bus, playing too near the bus, or
simply not seen by the driver. About 100 motorists are also killed each
year in school bus collisions.
Belt advocates are also pushing safety protections for children outside
the bus -- swing arms that keep kids away from the undercarriage and
cost $400, strobe lights at $50 each, and electronic sensors that can
detect motion under the bus at $1,000.
However, seat belts generate the most controversy. The debate centers
not on deaths, but on serious injuries. For example, when a school bus
flipped over in Flagstaff, Ariz., in 1996, 31 students were injured,
including five teenagers thrown from the bus. One of those teenagers --
a boy with a genius IQ -- was severely brain damaged. Another teenager
who was thrown around inside the bus was paralyzed.
The highway administration estimates that between 1988 and 1996 there
were an average of 8,500 injuries a year to pupils on buses, of which
885 were "moderate" and 350 "serious."
However, data collected by the National Safety Council shows that in
1996 there were 13,000 injuries, about 650 of them serious. Even more
alarming was a 94 percent increase in injuries between 1985 and 1996.
The council bases its data on reports from school transportation
officials in 33 states and extrapolates the results for the remaining
states. Seat belt advocates consider that data more reliable than the
highway administration's sampling of police reports from 60 locations
around the country. Those reports contain so few bus incidents and vary
so greatly from year to year that the highway administration has to
"blend" the results of more than one year together to arrive at an
estimate.
Last year, after CNN reported the increase in school bus injuries using
the safety council's published data, council officials disavowed their
own data and announced they would no longer collect information on
school bus injuries.
"We don't have full confidence in our own data," Chuck Hurley, a
spokesman for the council, said. Hurley denied the council was pressured
by its members -- who include bus company and school officials opposed
to requiring seat belts -- to back away from the data it has collected
for 25 years.
An internal highway administration analysis of the council's data found
that the data "does provide a reliable estimate" of injuries. Even
when taking into account increases in miles traveled by school buses,
there was a 39.4 percent increase in pupil injuries over the 11 years.
The injury rate per bus increased 65 percent.
Seat belt advocates have been collecting their own data. Since the
current school year began in September, there have been 1,800 injuries
to students aboard school buses requiring hospital treatment, Ross said.
The bus safety coalition bases its estimate primarily on reports found
on 500 newspaper Internet sites.
"Our point is not to give people hard and fast data, but to point out
that this is a more significant problem than some of the federal
agencies would have you believe," Ross said.
In 1977, the last time the highway administration ordered a major school
bus redesign, the agency recommended requiring seat belts and padded
seats that are 28 inches high. Under pressure from school officials and
the school bus industry, the agency dropped its seat belt recommendation
and reduced the seat height requirement from 28 inches to 24 inches.
The seat belt decision was understandable in the context of the times.
In the mid-1970s, relatively few people actually used the seat belts in
their cars and no states had laws requiring their use. The expectation
was that seat belt use on buses would be equally low.
All states now require seat belt use, except on buses. And an entire
generation of parents have routinely buckled up their children,
beginning with infant carriers on their way home from the hospital. To
many of these parents, putting children who have never ridden in a car
without being buckled into a car seat or restrained by a lap-shoulder
belt onto a school bus without belts of any kind is illogical.
"The trend is in this direction. A lot of school superintendents are
coming under pressure to do this. It's a major topic of conversation at
PTA meetings at the start of the school year," Ross said.
The redesign of school buses in the 1970s was based on the theory of
"compartmentalization, to which the school bus industry still
adheres. Children are expected to be safely contained in their seats by
limiting the space between rows and using high-backed padded seats. If
jolted, children are expected to hit the padded seat in front of them
and bounce back into their seat, much like eggs in a carton, proponents
of the theory contend.
Critics of compartmentalization, however, say the theory only works if
buses are struck from the front or the rear. It does nothing to keep
children in their seats if the bus is struck from the side or if it
rolls over.
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"How many times have you opened an egg carton and the eggs are
cracked?" complained Terry Holt, 36, a Memphis, Tenn., mother who
lobbies for seat belts on buses. "They're not protecting our kids. You
have to keep the eggs from bouncing around."
Both sides can point to studies and tests that support their argument
or undermine the other side. The last time the federal government
conducted a crash test using actual school buses, instead of a
simulation, was 1967. That study recommended requiring seat belts.
Seat belt advocates have primarily pushed for lap belts rather than
lap-shoulder belts because they are cheaper and don't involve the
adjustments to seats that shoulder straps require. However, some
advocates urge installing lap-shoulder belts as an even safer
alternative. They cost about $2,500 to $5,000 per bus.
While state transportation officials oppose requiring lap belts, they
say they are not opposed to the kind of lap-shoulder belts now used in
cars -- only that they want more research on their safety and
effectiveness in school buses before their use is ordered.
However, a National Association of State Pupil Transportation
Association position paper appears to suggest that transportation
officials may also fight lap-shoulder belts.
"There is considerable evidence that improper shoulder belt
positioning is a significant safety problem in other types of motor
vehicles," according to the paper. "If we rush to install lap-shoulder
belts in school buses without developing the necessary data and
science, we may very well establish policies that result in a negative
effect on the safety of children in school buses."
Bus company and school transportation officials are urging state
lawmakers to hold off on any legislation requiring seat belts on buses
until after the highway administration's study is completed more than a
year from now.
"It seems most states have looked at it realistically and said that
with two major federal agencies looking into this it makes sense to
wait," said Karen Finkel, executive director of the National School
Transportation Association, which represents bus contractors.
School districts spend over $12 billion a year on school bus contracts,
according to the safety coalition.
"For the last 20 years the industry has been allowed to set the
standards for safety for our children," Ross said. That's partly the
result of the political processes we have in our country and the ability
of a rich industry to affect those processes."
Holt, a housewife with no previous political experience, spoke to every
one of Tennessee's state senators and assembly members this year trying
to convince them to back legislation to phase in lap belts. They told
her there wasn't a big enough demand from the public to make it happen.
"What I learned the most is that it's all a lot of politics," Holt
said. "But I think eventually it will happen even if it takes 10
years."
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