Seat-belts on school buses

A 10-year old boy died last night following a school bus crash near Toronto...the children were not wearing seat-belts since seat-belts are not required by law on school buses. Turns out seat-belts on buses may actually cause more harm than good...

(from www.safety-council.org)

School buses transport almost three million Canadian children a day, travelling millions of kilometres in both rural and urban areas. Would these children be safer with seat-belts?

Statistically, the school bus is the safest way for children to get to school. On average over the past 10 years there has been less than one fatality per year inside a school bus. Most injuries happen outside the bus.

Research Proves No Safety Benefit

Installing seat-belts on school buses is not a new idea. There is a wealth of research from across North America on whether such a requirement would improve safety. Surprisingly, no safety benefit has ever been proven. In fact, crash tests have shown seat-belts could create more drawbacks than advantages.

In 1984, Transport Canada crash tested three different sizes of school buses (one small bus, one van conversion type bus and one large bus), each containing unbelted and belted test dummies. The tests indicated that the use of a lap belt on forward-facing seats could increase the risk of head injuries during a severe frontal collision. In a head-on collision, the most common type of school bus crash, the occupant's head could hit the seat in front, resulting in severe or fatal head and neck injuries.

Further investigation showed that the combination lap and shoulder belts would require stiffer seats, which could increase injury to unbelted students. Moreover, the shoulder belts increased the chance of abdominal injuries because of submarining. Tests showed children would slip down, risking injuries to organs covered by the lap belts.

In 1986, Transport Canada designed, fabricated and tested five different types of seats, each using a seat-belt, in an effort to improve protection for riders. The rearward-facing seat provided the greatest potential for occupant protection during frontal and near-frontal collisions. In a head-on collision, the crash forces are spread over the back of a rearward facing occupant instead of being concentrated on the head. However, motion sickness was found to be a drawback of the rearward-facing seats. There is no intention to make rearward facing seats mandatory.

A 1999 study by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) suggests that adding seat belts to school buses will cause additional head injuries and probably additional deaths in some crashes. It says school buses built since 1977 rely for safety not on seat-belts but on the close spacing of seats with padded seat backs, called compartmentalization. Seat-belts, by holding a child's pelvis firmly in place, allowed the torso to crack like a whip, with the head striking a seat back or a hard object with greater force than if the whole body has been thrown. The NTSB found the evidence ambiguous enough to avoid recommending seat belts, but was also not persuaded to endorse taking them out.

Some US states require seat-belts on school buses. However, none of them, fortunately, has experienced a crash that would demonstrate any benefits of adding seat-belts to school buses. There is still no scientific evidence that lives would be saved.

Perspectives on the Issue

Seat-belts were designed for cars, and have saved thousands of lives. School buses are designed with safety (but not seat-belts) in mind; they are not built like cars. Buses are much larger, higher and heavier than other vehicles on the road, so they have a body-on-frame design. For seat-belts to enhance rider safety, the bus body would have to be completely re-engineered with seat-belts integrated at the design stage.

Beyond the engineering problems someone would need to ensure the seat-belts are used, adjusted properly between uses by small and larger children, and repaired when damaged. In an emergency, seat-belts could hinder evacuation. Young children should not be placed in a situation where they must become responsible for their own safety.

School bus standards vary between countries. In Canada, almost 40 federal standards apply to the design and construction of school buses. These standards combine to make Canadian school buses an extremely safe mode of transportation. A school bus does not have safety belts like a passenger vehicle, but it does have many passive safety systems engineered into it.

The real safety issue is not seat-belts, but reductions in school bus service. Without the bus, more children are exposed to risk by walking to school or using alternate forms of transportation. Yet pedestrians account for almost 40 per cent of road fatalities to children aged 5 to 9. This is an issue worthy of attention by those concerned about children getting to and from school safely. Children are 16 times safer riding in a school bus than in a passenger vehicle.