HEADLINES
Will Alabama Study Change Opinions on Seat Belts?
By Stephane Babcock With the three-year study at an end and the industry await-
ing a final answer on how student subjects fared with the safety restraints, some wonder how much of an influence the Alabama school bus seat belt study will have on an issue that has been a hotbed of debate for more than two decades. “I prefer to wait for the final report from the University of
Alabama to make my judgment,” said Carol McGalliard, trans- portation director at Elmore County Public Schools, one of the participating schools. Originally commissioned by Governor Bob Riley’s Seat Belt Pi-
lot Study Group after the 2006 Huntsville school bus crash killed four high school students, the study findings are expected to re- leased by the end of this month, according to Dr. Dan Turner, the principal investigator on the research team. But Turner was ready and willing to speak to the industry on what his team has learned. “We’ve already visited some regional and state conferences
to talk about preliminary results,” said Dr. Turner, professor of civil engineering at the University of Alabama’s University Trans- portation Center for Alabama (UTCA). “Our proposed due date is Sept. 30, and we will first brief the governor’s study group on school bus seat belts that commissioned the report and then the Alabama Department of Education. Ten our plan is to have a press conference and to have the reports posted online.” So far, the preliminary findings have been well received,
according to State Director of Pupil Transportation Joe Light- sey, who has not been surprised by the responses he has seen so far. “Of course everyone agrees that school buses are the safest
way to transport students. Most have understood that getting students to ‘buckle up’ will be a challenge, that the higher back seats will present problems with [driver] visibility [of students] and that the dollar cost of installing seat belts will be high,” said Lightsey. “I believe most have been a little surprised to hear some of the data on actual capacity reduction, the effect of aides on buckle-up rates and parent attitudes.” Te real-life experiences by those involved in the study will
help dispel what some call “myths” surrounding the issue of seat belts. But, for some involved with the study at ground zero, there are still a few hurdles to overcome even if the industry over- whelmingly accepts the idea of installing seat belts on every bus. “I found that the major issue in participating in the study
22 School Transportation News Magazine September 2010
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