BUCKLING UP
A look at three- point, seat-belt implementation at different school districts across the country after federal position change
WRITTEN BY JEANETTE REVELES |
JEANETTE@STNONLINE.COM
T
he issue of lap-shoulder seat belts on school buses remains a controversial topic in the student transportation industry. Supporters of the occu-
pant restraints argue they can offer enhanced safety and can improve student behavior, while opponents argue that three-point seat belts are too costly and can impede evacuations. Last November, Mark Rosekind, adminis- trator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, announced a change in the agency’s position on the issue. Where previous- ly, NHTSA said that school buses were already very safe without the technology and that the additional cost would only result in one or two additional saved lives per year, Rosekind said the new federal position was that all children riding the school bus should be strapped in. Or, as he put it at the NAPT Summit: “Is this a change in position? Yes. But it is con- sistent with NHTSA’s role as the guardian of safety on America’s roads. It is consistent with decades of progress in raising seat belts in the minds of the public from novelty to nuisance
44 School Transportation News • MAY 2016
to ‘the car doesn’t move until I hear that click.’ Seat belts are icons of safety. And that makes them the single most effective thing we can provide to improve the confidence of parents, policymakers and children.” While this position reversal did not change the minds of some who already opposed all varieties of seat belts, it was an impetus to add the equipment to their operations for others.
Te Colorado Springs School District 11 is one example of this. Te district recently announced plans to retrofit three of its school buses to add seat belts. “Te decision was largely precipitated by the speech that was given by the gentleman who runs NHTSA,” said Scott Lewis, executive director of facilities, operations and transpor- tation. “In that speech, (Rosekind) officially changed the policy, if you will, from one sug- gesting that seat belts might be good to where they now believe that seat belts are supposed to be in a school bus.”
Te district was able to secure the funding
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