bus. Te bus then veered off the highway and into a ditch, rolling over onto its roof. “We started swaying from the left and then to the right.


But we were in the back, so we couldn’t see what was go- ing on, on the road,” Martin Schiele, a student aboard the bus told ABC’s Good Morning America. “And we were kind of in shock. When we turned to the right, we started flipping into a ditch, and as we were flipping, bodies were ricocheting off the bus. It was just crazy.” In response to the accident, state Sen. Earline Rogers


renewed a call for seat belt legislation. Two earlier bills, one of which she had sponsored, did not receive committee hearings, so after seeing photos from the crash, Rogers wrote a letter urging legislative leaders to put the issue on the agenda of a summer interim study committee.


Less than two weeks after Rosekind’s announcement last fall, the Houston Independent School District announced that all new school bus purchases would be equipped with three-point seat belts. “Safety always comes first—above all else,” said Terry


Grier, district superintendent at the time. “School buses are already one of the safest modes of transportation available to students. If NHTSA believes three-point


seatbelts will make our students even safer, we will abso- lutely act on it.”


Te announcement came about two months after a fatal crash claimed the lives of two high school students, when a motorist struck a school bus during a lane change. Te school bus veered to the right, which caused it to strike a guard rail and plunge off the 610 Loop to the road below. Just days after the accident, the Houston Education


Support Personnel Union, which represents HISD bus drivers and attendants, began to call for seat belts on district buses. Other states are also exploring the topic. For example,


House Bill 2639 in Washington state sought to study the costs and benefits of requiring seat belts on school buses. In March, the bill was “reintroduced and retained in present status,” according to LegiScan; however, the House is currently in recess. While Rosekind’s announcement spurred change for some school districts around the country, it is likely yet to be seen what the greater impact on the industry will be. ●


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1.800.543.0575 | www.ewss.org | 10939B Reed Hartman Hwy. • Cincinnati, OH 45242 48 School Transportation News • MAY 2016


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