ALT-2 Should School Buses have and Enforce Seat Belt use – No
For the past 10 years I have been driving a school bus. Since I still drive I shouldn't tell you that I have never been involved in an accident and I have never had a student thrown on the bus.
At the beginning of my driving career it became mandated that all school buses in NJ have seat belts for each passenger, in any new bus.
The laws of my state dictate that a school bus be removed from active duty after 12 years and is only allowed 1 year as a substitute. At this time, all buses have seat belts.
While there are seat belts on all buses, it is impossible for us to enforce the use of the seat belts.
Laws dictate that we are not allowed to touch the children. This includes latching seat belts.
While the school rules require a student to wear the seat belt, there are many reasons why the rules are not only unsafe, they are unrealistic.
I will start with unrealistic. Let me count the ways...When a student refuses to wear the belt, we have 4 options. Write them up (the preferred solution for everyone but the principal who has to call the parents!), call the police and possibly keep them from something more important, like pulling over people who run the bus lights! Or refuse to move the bus. This will usually result in all of the students becoming upset, as well as their parents and often the driver being the one who ends up in hot water, because they are late for another run. And last but not least, when a student takes off their belt, and the bus is pulled over and 15 seat belt tickets are issued, who is going to pay the fines? The driver? The district? The parents? The courts are clogged enough without having 500 people a month disputing a ticket because they weren't the person responsible at the time of the incident.
See how enthusiastic you are about Little Johnny being required to wear a seat belt when you get a $77 ticket! Or have to drive them back and forth to school everyday because they got suspended from the bus.
As far as safety, consider that it is far more common for a bus to catch on fire or most often appear to be on fire from engine problems, than to have an accident. Imagine that there are 52, 5 and 6 year old kids on a bus with one adult. The bus stalls on the Rail Road tracks. It would be natural for the kids to be excited and confused when the bus has to be evacuated. When one adult has to unload that many children in an emergency, the results are far more tragic.
