FIRST TAKE In response to the death of a 6-year-old kindergartner, the first student to die during a school bus
crash in some four decades, the Ohio House of Representatives is the latest group to debate school bus occupant restraint systems. Hours after Kasey King was killed June 2, when his Zanesville school bus ran off the road, struck a utility pole and rolled onto its roof, lawmakers quickly assembled to introduce legislation that would require three-point, lap/shoulder belts on school buses. “If you’ve seen pictures of the bus, there is no way a seat belt would have saved that poor
What is the Cost of Saving One Life?
By Ryan Gray
boy,” commented Brad Sprague, the general manager of First Student operations, on our Face- book page, shortly after we ran an online article on the bill’s introduction. Sprague is located in Lorain, Ohio, which is located west of Cleveland and about 80 miles north of where the crash occurred near Dresden. “When a bus catches on fire and all of the kids become trapped, the lawmakers will be all about
removing them,” he added. Sprague makes a good point. A photograph I saw showed the bus lying on its roof in a wooded
area off the highway and in a ravine. Te school bus driver was taken to a hospital with serious injuries only to be later released in “good condition.” But the six other students onboard were not seriously injured. Tey were also transported to a hospital per procedure for such a crash but received clean bills of health despite some bumps and bruises and also, certainly, suffering from traumatic stress. I can only imagine the state of the bus driver’s own mental health. So, the lawmak- ers, parents or anyone else could certainly debate that seat belts could have saved Kasey’s life, but, for whatever reason, everyone else’s life was spared. As of this writing, it remained unknown the exact cause of death, but some crashes just aren’t
survivable. It all depends on what impacted the school bus, how it was impacted and where, as well as the location of the student. Pete Japikse, the associate director of pupil transportation at the Ohio Department of Education, told me that it was unclear if Kasey King was seated or standing when the bus left the roadway, hit the telephone pole and flipped over. Tis data, once available, will be telling and should factor into the legislature’s ultimate decision. Still, there’s House Bill 488, which would require all school districts that “purchase, lease or rent” a
school bus after Jan. 1, 2014, to ensure the vehicle is equipped with three-point, lap/shoulder belts. Te bill also requires school boards to provide students with training on how to use the belts. However, at the same time, schools and bus operators would receive immunity from criminal charges, civil suits or property damage claims in the event students don’t wear or fail to properly adjust the restraints. Tanks in part to recent debate in Connecticut, where legislators in late May finally agreed that it
was cost prohibitive and without merit to require school districts and the bus companies they con- tract with to be forced to adopt lap/shoulder belts in response to that state’s loss of a 16-year-old honors student who died when his school bus crashed in January during an activity trip. Instead, as we describe on page 28, Gov. M. Jodi Rell signed a stimulus package, of sorts, that extends a 50 percent sales tax rebate for the optional purchase of new school buses with these restraint systems. Ohio legislators, too, are aware of the potential price tag. A fiscal note on HB 488 that arrived
very soon after the original text was published states that per bus cost increases may range from $10,000 to $15,000, which equates to about $12 million to $22.5 million per year based on average annual school bus replacement cycles of 1,200 to 1,500 vehicles statewide. And maintaining, repair- ing and replacing damaged seat belts can add $500 or more per bus to annual costs, which could mean additional expenditures of $600,000 to $750,000 each year. If passenger capacity is reduced by 30 percent based on school bus seating with the lap/shoulder
restraints, the analysis estimated another 360 to 450 new buses would be necessary each year to address shortages. Tis could result in additional expenditures of approximately $30.6 million to $42.8 million per year. Hefty price tags, indeed, for saving one life, as NHTSA stated when publish- ing its final rule on mandatory lap/shoulder belts for Type A buses, which goes into effect a year from September. It remains to be seen exactly how June 2, 2010, will be remembered in Ohio or the industry.
Certainly it will always be a dark day for the parents of Kasey King and all who knew him. But it could also be the date that sprang into motion the nation’s latest state school bus seat belt law. Or it could be a “near miss” in the minds of many pupil transporters. Hopefully, however, the industry will seek to continue to be part of the conversation as the utmost advocate of child safety rather than simply appearing as the unswayable opponent. n
12 School Transportation News Magazine July 2010
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