Do your school buses need three-point seat belts or harnesses to maintain student safety while on the road? For many people, this question is a no-brainer - the problem is, they can't actually agree on which 'obvious' answer is correct.
So, it's still worth examining the question - especially if your school is considering paying for seat belt upgrades to older buses.
Pros and Cons of Three-Point Harnesses in School Buses
First, as a note on jargon: technically speaking, harnesses and seat belts are two different things. Harnesses are sturdier, and usually fully cover the child's chest. They are sometimes used to secure special-needs children who may need extra help staying upright in their seats.
However, the two terms tend to be used interchangeably, even in state laws.
1 - Ubiquity
Seat belts are on almost every other type of road vehicle, so why not school buses? Further, students who have to belt in every time they get in a vehicle will be faster to develop the habit.
2 - Preventing students from being thrown around
The biggest likely benefit to bus seat harnesses is that they keep students in their seats in the case of a side collision. Otherwise, they could be thrown into the aisles or - in a worse case scenario - possibly even ejected from a window.
3 - Keeping students seated
Seat belts and harnesses keep kids in place. There's an argument to be made that strapping them down will improve student safety by reducing the ways they can disrupt the bus or distract the driver.
1 - Bus injuries are already incredibly low
School buses are by far the safest form of road vehicle. The number of children killed within school buses nationwide per year is typically less than a dozen. Every child death is a tragedy, but we may be at a point where actual improved safety would be statistically impossible to achieve.
2 - Seat belts can malfunction in crashes
The biggest concern about belts and harnesses is: what if the bus needs to be evacuated, and the bus driver struggles to get students free? In some scenarios, belts could potentially lead to more fatalities than if they were unbelted and easily evacuated.
3 - The costs are significant
Retrofitting seat belts onto older buses costs several thousand dollars per bus. That's a big chunk of a school's transportation budget. Without financial assistance, the opportunity costs may not be justifiable - especially if that money could help students in more direct ways, such as providing low-income lunches.
BusBoss wants to help you maintain student safety. We don't provide seat belts, but we do have a variety of safety and tracking systems that make your transportation system better! Contact us to learn more.
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