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Tarheel

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Heartbreaking.  

 

We were just discussing the fact that seat belts are not utilized on school buses.  Statistically, they make little sense, as a heavy school bus will emerge victorious in a low speed collision with a smaller lighter car. Imagine the problems buckling and unbuckling so many children.  Unfortunately, it works against reinforcing the mind-set among the young that they should always wear seat belts in cars.  In hindsight, seat belts might have helped in this instance.

 

The logic and physics behind school bus seat belt policies doesn't prevent the carnage experienced here when apparently excessive speed meets a relatively immovable object.  Nothing will make this right for the victims and their families, but, perhaps others will take the opportunity to weed out those who should not be entrusted with the lives of children.

 

To be clear, school buses are the only vehicles in which I feel seat belts are contraindicated, for the reasons above.  Taxis, airport shuttles, limos, etc. require seat belt use.  Recall the Detroit Redwings in a limo accident after celebrating a Stanley Cup victory.   One NHL playing career and two lives were shattered in an instant; seat belts probably would have made the difference.

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16 minutes ago, DizRotus said:

but, perhaps others will take the opportunity to weed out those who should not be entrusted with the lives of children.

Typically, school bus drivers don't respect the cargo or size and weight of the vehicle for which they're supposed to be responsible. 

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My son played soccer all through high school.  He's basically played since he was 4 and grew up with soccer players as friends from both genders.  In his senior year the girls varsity team bus was involved in an accident.  It was one of the typical rainy nights we frequently have here.  It was a night game as well.  The bus was following a truck with a load of large Styrofoam blocks.  The blocks started coming off the back of the truck and looked like concrete in the road.  Seeing them the bus driver cut the wheel hard and rolled the bus.  The accident killed 2 of my son's friends and maimed a bunch more.  My best friends daughter was on the bus and was physically unhurt but needed counselling for what seemed like an eternity for what she saw went through.  Seat belts would have kept them from going out the side windows.  The parents of the deceased girls lobbied the state to make seat belts mandatory in school busses.

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We had the school bus accident here 20 years ago in Fox River Grove when the bus got hit by the train. The back end of the bus wasn't completely across the tracks and at that time lights didn't change for trains. 7 high schoolers died and a bunch more were hurt.

laws were changed that you couldn't cross RR tracks at an intersection, earlier gates as trains approached. 20 years later police everywhere are still vigilant enforcing it.

Seatbelts would have done no good, it's sad that tragedies are necessary to get enough people's attention before something is done

\

Mark

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Carl,

 

IMO, seat belt use makes sense when school buses are used to take teams to other cities, or for fieldtrips, etc., but school buses in this state do not have seat belts, except for the driver.  Seat belt use is impractical, and statistically unnecessary, shuttling kids through residential streets at low speeds.  It is naive to think that a bus driver, or anyone else, is going to get a busload of kids to wear seat belts.

 

According to USA Today:

 

"Once a bus begins rolling down the road, a child is, statistically speaking, safer inside the bus than outside it: Of the 327 school-age children killed in school-transportation-related crashes since 2004, 54 were children riding in buses. Accidents involving these vehicles, NHTSA found, are almost three times as deadly for occupants of the other vehicles."

 

Apparently, the physics involved makes the unbelted children on the school bus safer than the kids in cars wearing sea belts.

 

 

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Seems that all that report is saying is that if you're a child, it's safer to be in a bus during an accident than a car.  Well duh.  I'll bet if we spent a couple more million on a study we could find out it's safer for kids to be in an accident riding in a car than it is to be on the back of a motorcycle.

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It seems to me the goal is to save lives and prevent injuries.  The value of statistics is in allocating scarce resources to accomplish that goal.

 

The statistics tell me it would be better to use those resources to increase the quality of the school bus drivers than to equip school buses with seat belts that won't be used.  

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I would agree that 20 years ago, seat belts could be bad on a bus, because no one was used to wearing them. Now most (probably in the 90% range) people use and / or are familiar with the function of latching and unlatching a seat belt  

 

Agree that hitting a tree like this one, hit by a train, or hitting Earth from outer space, a seat belt might not help. In most cases it will. 

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Just a heads up for you last minute shoppers Walmart has a Cajun turkey that is quite tasty.  I had lunch with a group Sunday and all were raving about it.  It is not too hot and very juicy. 

 

Whatever you eat have a great Thanksgiving and I'll catch you on the flip side.

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