DEBATE * USA - Bus belt: No easy answer
Study shows risks of use, but push is on for another look Birmingham,AL,USA -AL.com/The Huntsville Times, by BOB LOWRY & STEVE DOYL -Nov 26, 2006: -- Should school buses be outfitted with safety belts? Four states think so, but there's strong disagreement among state and federal agencies and national coalitions and lobbyists on both sides... NHTSA's 2002 report to Congress showed students were nearly eight times safer riding in a school bus than in a car. The fatality rate for school buses was 0.2 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, compared with 1.5 fatalities per 100 million miles for cars... In 2005, there were no school bus-related fatalities in Alabama, but 1,044 people were killed in other traffic accidents in the state...
* USA - Ala. accident forces all to address school bus safety
Huntington,WV,USA-The Huntington Herald Dispatch -Nov 26, 2006: -- As of last count, 281,297 children were enrolled in public schools in West Virginia. The vast majority ride school buses to and from school every day. It's the best way, and in some cases the only way, to get that many children to school reliably each day... School buses are the safest form of transportation for schoolchildren. Those big yellow buses have the best safety record around... But that does not lessen the horror of what happened in Huntsville, Ala., on Monday. A school bus with 40 high school students aboard was struck by a car on an interstate highway ramp. The impact caused the bus to swerve and go over a concrete railing, crashing nose-first onto a street 30 feet below. Two students died at the scene and two more died later in a hospital...
* USA - Seat belts on school buses should be mandatory
Fredericksburg,VA,USA -The Free Lance-Sta, by Candice Gray & King George -26 Nov 2006: -- MSNBC states that 17,000 children in America are injured in school bus-related accidents each year... Many children get hurt while standing up or moving around while the bus is in motion. Seat belts need to be installed in every school bus for the safety of the kids who ride them... Students who ride the bus to school will also disagree, because kids are not used to being constrained, and some are in the habit of being able to move around freely whenever they want... Lap-shoulder seat belts should be installed in every school bus. The usage of these seat belts should also be monitored and enforced...
* USA - Time for a look at seat belts on school buses
Mobile,AL,USA -The Mobile Register -Nov 27, 2006: -- Gov. Bob Riley says the fatal school bus crash in Huntsville last week should rev up a debate about school bus safety. He's right... The debate should center on whether seat belts should be required on big school buses like the one that plunged over the railing of an Interstate 565 overpass Nov. 20. Four of the 40 Lee High School students on the bus died and others were injured, some critically. The bus driver also was hospitalized... Granted, such a fatal accident is rare. School buses are one of the safer forms of transportation. Bus interiors and seats are designed to protect children, and do a pretty good job. Seats have high, padded backs and are set close together to "compartmentalize" each child... Indeed, the National Highway Safety Administration says compartmentalization is the best way to protect children on large school buses. (Smaller school buses must have seat belts.)... Putting seat belts on school buses would cost money, of course. One school district reported spending about $90 per seat. Other estimates range from $500 to $2,500 per bus, depending on the type of belts purchased. But most analyses have shown the belts to be cost effective when average health care costs for injured students are included in the calculation... In addition to preventing injuries and deaths in an accident, seat belts also could help with discipline by keeping kids in their seats... Only New York and New Jersey require seat belts in all school buses. Florida requires them on new buses. After the Huntsville tragedy, Alabama officials should consider requiring them, too...
* USA - Seat Belts and Sense on Buses
Washington,DC,USA -The Washington Post (Letter to editor by BILL SCANLON, from Ellicott City)-Nov 29, 2006: -- The Nov. 21 news story "Bus Crash Kills 3 Teens in Ala." said: "The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the wreck. The agency has said that school buses are designed to protect occupants without the need for seat belts."... Does anybody really believe that?... Perhaps the NTSB can explain what, exactly, in the design of school buses makes seat belts unnecessary. Maybe whatever it is can be incorporated into the design of cars to eliminate the need for seat belts in them, too... It seems to me that nothing in the design of school buses would have protected occupants of that bus, which went nose-first 30 feet off an overpass, as well as seat belts would have. Had the belts been available and worn, maybe the injuries wouldn't have been so serious...
* USA - Judge Bean: Time For Seat Belts In Buses
Chattanooga,TN,USA -The Chattanoogan -1 Dec 2006: -- Response by City Judge Russell: We were all upset over the loss of the students in the school bus accident in Huntsville, Ala... It was noted that once again there were no seat belts on the bus. Most of us will recall the video on television out of North Carolina with the school bus that had a video camera in it facing the children. The bus turned over and it showed the teenagers being tossed over and over as the bus tumbled. Seat belts would have obviously prevented this. School buses are high up and top heavy. In an accident, or when they run off the road, many times they flip. Because of these factors and the accidents as a society we must require seat belts to be placed in our school buses... The issue is money versus saving lives. We need to go for saving lives. I wonder how many of the four young girls killed in Huntsville would be alive if they had had seat belts. In my opinion, our local school board needs to address this issue"...
* USA - In our view: Seat belts on buses
Joplin,MO,USA -The Joplin Globe -2 Dec 2006: -- The recent deadly crash in Alabama, in which a school bus apparently was sideswiped and tumbled nose-first off an interstate overpass, undoubtedly will revive the heated debate over whether seat restraints are needed to protect students being carried to and from school... We side with those who believe seat belts or, better yet, shoulder harnesses, are necessary to help prevent serious injuries or deaths in a crash. Although the freak Alabama mishap clearly falls well out of what might be categorized as the norm for school-bus accidents, it seems reasonable that some sort of safety restraints might have mitigated this tragedy that left four students dead and 14 injured, including the driver... All of us think, hope and pray that a serious school-bus accident won’t happen. But, despite every precaution, machines do malfunction at times, people are distracted and accidents occur, and safety restraints just might well prove worth the expense...
... and OUTSIDE USA
* UK - Parents in fresh call for seatbelts on buses
London,UK -stv.tv -4 Dec 2006: -- Fresh calls for seatbelts to be installed in all school buses have been issued today as the youngsters involved in a smash last week return to school... Their parents are renewing their call to Aberdeenshire Council to insist that all school buses are fitted with seatbelts... No one suffered life threatening injuries in this latest crash, but campaigners believe youngsters involved in accidents in the future may not be so lucky... (Picture: school bus crash left three pupils from Netherley Primary School in hospital with head injuries)
* Australia - Kids in the hot seat on buses
Molendinar,Queensland,Australia -The Gold Coast Bulletin -5 Dec 2006: -- For the second time in a little more than a week, a Gold Coast school bus has been involved in a head-on collision, injuring several children... The crash at Burleigh Waters yesterday has provoked renewed calls for seat belts to be installed on buses... Four children received cuts and abrasions to the face, and the roadway was strewn with shattered glass, after the bus and a truck came to grief at an intersection... Senior Sergeant Arron Ottaway said both vehicles had taken evasive action but had been unable to prevent the crash...
posted by Unknown @ 11:46 AM
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