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ner, transportation coordinator for Caldwell (Ohio) Exempted Village School District. “You cannot evacuate a bus in 1.5 min- utes if you have to deal with seat belts. Ridiculous.” Others saw a minimal impact on their district, unless students
were obligated to wear the belts, which would require more time for routes and a monitor on all Type A buses, increasing payroll costs. For Larry Curlis, director of operations for Grand Prairie (Texas) Independent School District, the rule will impede his ability to move his 500 student riders, citing the fact that a ma- jority of students injured or killed are outside the bus at the time of incident.
❝ Tat would be a huge
expense just for our fleet alone and for the safest transportation system in the world, which is in a bad position for funding as it is, all for a miniscule potential increase in safety. ❞
— Robert Ulrichson, Lufkin (Texas) Independent School District “No one has thought of how to get 60 wiggly kinder[garten]
and first grade students into the belts and then keep them there while the driver, without a monitor, navigates the route,” added Curlis. “I think some of my students may use the belts as a tool to hurt another student.” But mixed within the number of seat belt detractors were
those that support the inclusion of lap/shoulder belts over just laps belts, adding that the lap-only belt is not safe because “it does not protect the upper body from flopping forward.” “Having the bus seat equipped with the three-point restraint
would simplify things,” wrote Lawrence Hiles, safety director for St. Louis Park Transportation, located just outside of Minneapolis. Some districts, like Bartholomew Consolidated School Corpo-
ration in Columbus, Ind., have already moved in the direction of lap/shoulder belts. Te district’s last shipment of six buses came equipped with the safety restraints and they’ve experienced no loss of seating due to the belts, according to Transportation Man- ager Monica Coburn. Te district adjusted its bus replacement plan to no longer purchase air conditioning on their general edu- cation buses to offset the additional costs related to seat belts. “We compared the value of AC versus belts. AC, we get a com-
fort value of about three months. Belts, we get a safety value of 12 months. We feel that safety should come first,” added Coburn. ■
20 School Transportation News Magazine August 2010
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