SPECIAL REPORT
Seat-Belt Law Seamless to Implement for Central California District
By Michelle Fisher When a new law passes, people have to follow it whether they
agree with it or not, especially if they are responsible for the safety of others. Unlike the transportation directors STN featured in recent special reports on lap-shoulder belt usage, Katie White of Visalia Unified School District in California’s San Joaquin Val- ley didn’t have a choice about buying new school buses with the restraints — she had a mandate. On July 1, 2004, a California state law went into effect requiring
all new Type 2 small school buses to be equipped with the three- point restraint systems, and a year later, it took effect for the Type 1 conventional and transit-style buses. Currently Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York and Texas also have legislation requiring seat belts on all new school buses, but only California mandates the three-point belts. White, who has steered the district’s transportation since
2003, said she was initially concerned about passenger capacity on the new buses with the seat belts. So was her “Breakfast Club,” the group of roughly seven local transportation directors who get together once a month to talk shop and share ideas. “I think we were scared at first, thinking we couldn’t afford it,
we weren’t funded for it, and we’d need one-third more drivers and buses,” she said.
CAPACITY NO LONGER AN ISSUE Visalia USD had just purchased 10 transit-style school buses
without seat belts when the law took effect, so it was not until 2007 that it bought four buses equipped with three-point belts. Te first transit-style buses with three-point belts had the capac- ity for 62 passengers, White recalled, but before that, those buses could hold 78 to 84 students. “We actually (never realized) those kinds of numbers. Most of
our buses weren’t running at 84, so it didn’t affect us the way I thought it would,” she said. “Now, with the seat configurations, the way seats have changed and the aisles being more narrow, we can accommodate up to 81 passengers.” She added that her colleagues had the same results, as their
buses were not running at full capacity, either. Visalia spans roughly 200 square miles and encompasses
farms, dairies and other outlying communities. Te semi-rural school district has 95 buses — 45 of them with three-point seat belts — and transports about 5,000 students out of the total 32,000. Sixty percent qualify for free and reduced lunch, making it a “high poverty” district. “We transport all ages because of staggered bell schedules: first, high schools, then middle and then elementary. In some of the
32 School Transportation News Magazine November 2012
Visalia USD school bus driver Billy Luna checks the lap- shoulder belt of a SynTec bus seat during his daily pre-trip inspection.
more rural routes, they are all integrated together. We use seat- belt buses for those routes and special needs routes,” White said.
EASY TO REPAIR AND USE Besides overseeing all district busing, White manages Mid
Valley Transportation, which offers field trip and contract main- tenance support to rural school districts in the area. “Here in California, school districts don’t have the extra money
for new buses,” White said. “Any bus replacement has to have seat belts, so most of the replacements we’re doing are dictated by grant dollars.” Te two most recent grants obtained through the San Joaquin
Valley Air Pollution Control District helped purchase 16 new school buses this year: six CNG and 10 low-emission diesel buses. White last spring took delivery of a dozen Tomas Built transit- style buses containing SynTec’s new S3C school bus seat. Te convertible seat has a common base and interchangeable backs, allowing for either no belts, two-point lap belts, lap-shoulder belts or integrated child seats. But that isn’t why White and her shop foreman decided on
SynTec’s seating system. She said the biggest attraction was the zip-on seatback cover that can be quickly removed and replaced.
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