Currently school bus transportation is the safest form of ground transportation available. School buses are nearly 8 times safer than passenger vehicles. There are several reasons for this:
- School buses are larger and heavier than normal passenger cars.
- Besides being big, they are also easier to see because of their color.
- School buses also must meet tougher safety standards than passenger cars.
- The smaller buses (under 10,000 pounds) are equipped with lap belts. These buses should be used for transporting pre-school age children so that the kids can be correctly protected in their child restraint.
On the larger buses, compartmentalization is used to protect the occupants. Compartmentalization uses the concept of eggs in a carton. This means that seats on school buses must have high, energy absorbing seat backs that are flexible. The combination of energy-absorbent seats and narrow spacing creates a compartment within which each occupant is confined in a crash.
While neither compartmentalization nor the belts are perfect, they currently offer the best options for protection on school buses. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, fewer than eight passengers die in school bus crashes every year, even though 474,000 school buses carry 25.1 million children more than 4.8 billion miles annually. That’s a small percentage of people killed, but remember, each of those deaths represents 100% of someone’s child.
The federal government recently announced a new proposal to make school buses safer by requiring higher seat backs and setting new safety belt standards for school buses. If the proposal is adopted it would mean increased protection on all new buses by improving on the compartmentalization concept. On the smaller buses, lap-shoulder belts would be required instead of a lap belt only. The proposal also allows school districts to use federal highway safety funds to cover the additional cost of equipping buses with seat belts.
Additional steps can be taken such as improved school bus driver training and monitors on the buses but this new proposal is a step in the right direction. As technology improves and new innovations are introduced, highway safety in general, and safe school bus transportation specifically will get better.
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