Should school buses have and enforce seat belt use? – Yes
In a perfect world, the understandable answer to this question would be YES, school buses should have and enforce the seat belt laws. However, we do not live in a perfect world. As parents and concerned citizens, we are always worried about our Children's safety and their welfare. And that is a good thing, only if we know and understand what is happening.
In our present-day school environments, seat belts in school buses are a thing of the past. The main contributor to this factor is the lack of enforcement. Fundamentally, no one party can be blamed for this lack of oversight but you have to understand the situation inside the bus to see how this can be problematic. First of all, in most buses there is only a driver and there are no assistants or any sort of teacher present in the bus to help assist the driver and keep order in the bus. Many times, the drivers are doing more than they are hired to do. Bus drivers are forced to maintain control of the bus and drive safe while making sure kids are not too unruly or doing anything unsafe. Already, this strains the concentration levels of the bus driver, affecting their driving while putting more unneeded pressure into their lives.
Many times it is a common sight in New York City schools to see bus drivers trying to manage conflict situations in their bus while driving. This tends to get dangerous and is a practice that is strictly unsafe for our children. And when things get out of hand, drivers pull over and call the police for assistance. Already, this is a problem. Now you want to add an extra burden to these already strained bus drivers?
Already many bus drivers strive to make sure no kids are standing up or throwing items around the bus or engaging in unsafe behaviors. But that is simply too much to do all at once and adding more restrictions to the bus driver is not a good idea. In many cases, these drivers are going well above and beyond what their job description says they should do. And in a typical scenario where a cop pulls a school bus over for children wearing no seat belts, who should be fined? The bus driver or the children's parents?
The simple fact is that many of these kids simply do not care enough and already many school buses are like zoos on wheels. There is only so much we can do in the name of safety before it starts getting out of hand and endanger people or strain already existing resources. By introducing a seat belt law for buses and then enforcing it would mean we have to do more to make sure it is enforced. This means, all school buses should be staffed by teachers (at least one) and a driver so the driver can drive and get assistance in maintaining the kids. This would of course mean a higher school budget and expenses (school tax... or your property tax would go up) which so many parents and people do not like. How can you call for more safety measures to be introduced if you are not willing to pay for them?
Second, we have to address the enforcement issues. How is the law going to be enforced? Are cops going to randomly pull over school buses and check every seat for every kid? And if they catch a kid with no seat belts on, who is fined? The bus driver and his company or simply the parent? As far as i am concerned, both the bus driver and the parents have an equal responsibility to ensure their kids wear the seat belt but there is only so much a bus driver and parents can do.
And more importantly, already many bus drivers encourage and tell their kids to wear seat belts before starting the engine. But as we can find throughout the country, many children refuse to listen, adhere by the driver's safety instructions or even to wear the seatbelt. So what can the driver do? In reality, the bus driver has simply no power other than to refuse to drive the bus - so the kids are essentially given a free reign of the bus... the reason why today we see school buses that are worse than monkeys in a zoo.
So essentially, my argument is that in theory enforcing seat belt use in school buses are a great idea but when it comes down to practical uses, it is extremely limiting and enforcement is going to be a problem. And if we go through with the law, then we must be ready to go the extra mile and spend the necessary money to make sure there are enough supervision in the buses so the drivers are free to do their job without endangering the children.
