Why School Bus Seat Belt Laws Need to Change

School buses manufactured in the United States after 1985 are equipped with seat belts. Each state has the responsibility for passing and enforcing seat belt laws.

Bluebird is the largest school bus manufacturer. Although its safety belts began appearing in smaller, van-type buses as early as 1978, it did not begin installing seat belts in all vehicles until the mid '80s.

Since the mid-1990s, seat belts in new school buses have changed from being one belt per seat to one belt per occupant. This was a measure adopted to keep schools from over crowding buses. Single seat belts reinforced the concept that the bus is safest at or below the recommended number of occupants.

State seat belt laws are not changed often. The proceeds from violations of the laws are normally earmarked for road repair, which is subsidized by the Federal government, enforcing the laws on school buses has not been priority. Considering the US driving record of school bus drivers, there has been no public outcry for a change in the law in nearly two decades.

In the 80s, staunch advocates against seat belts for school buses mounted a successful campaign to block a Federal incentive for states which passed school bus seat belt laws. Citing reasons like belt-slippage decapitation, individual weight differences and (faulty) free fall information, these advocates believed that seat belts posed more danger than safety.

States which were proposing the legislation lost their incentive to pass the measure, as there was no longer any profit. The official press release from the spin doctors was that school bus seat belts were not proven to decrease the injury to the riders in the crash investigations. What was removed from the press release was the investigation findings were biased toward fatality: No test dummy survived any of the crashes, with or without a seat belt.

Further supporting the abandonment of the legislation, this statement also issued: Constitutionality of regulating parochial schools is a question as yet unanswered by the Supreme Court. This was, in totality, because no such case existed. Parochial schools have never filed suit to avoid adherence to any state education or safety regulation to date.

Yet, schools, both public and parochial, and parents continued to advocate for their students' safety directly to the school bus manufacturers. This lead to the installation of seat belts.

Parochial schools, individually, may require their students to wear seat belts. In the absence of state legislation, public schools may not.

Until the parents demand that the law be changed regardless of the profit margin, child safety will take the proverbial backseat in state legislatures.

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