Seat Belts on School Buses, Because Early Habits Save Lives

I am using this holiday column to thank Transportation Secretary Mary Peters for a singular act of common sense. Under her guidance, using the research of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, her department has come up with a proposal to install three-point seat belts -- lap belts and shoulder harnesses -- in school buses nationwide.

Made public by Peters last week in an address to the students and faculty of Morrisville Elementary School in North Carolina, the proposal would allow school districts to use federal highway safety funds to put belts in buses, which is exactly where they should have been since the 1960s, when seat belts began appearing in cars.

Frankly, I never could understand our nation's glaring double standard on this issue.

We require that adults wear seat belts in cars and trucks. We demand that they properly restrain infants and toddlers in child safety seats. In many places around the country, failure to buckle up when driving a vehicle or riding as a passenger counts as a primary traffic offense. Failing to properly restrain a baby or child in a moving vehicle can result in a big traffic ticket and possibly yield other legal charges.

Police departments nationwide annually run "Click It or Ticket" campaigns, usually around holidays such as Memorial Day or the Fourth of July. Their aim is simple. They want to save lives. They know that an unrestrained body in motion continues moving when the vehicle it is in abruptly stops. They know that when that happens, the moving body crashes into things inside of the vehicle or is thrown out of it, often with deadly results.

Consider the recent spate of teenage crash deaths in the Washington area in the past month -- 10 teenagers killed, 10 promising lives cut short, largely because most of them were unbelted when their vehicles crashed.

Yet, for decades in this country, we have persisted with the foolishness that unbelted schoolchildren are safe on buses because buses are big. Perhaps that is why so many unbelted teenage drivers erroneously believe they are safe in big sedans and sport-utility vehicles -- until they crash, and they, their families and bereaved communities find out otherwise.

They are the victims of a mixed-up educational message. When we march them to the big, belt-free, yellow school bus, we are telling them through example that seat belts are unnecessary. Then, when they are 16 years old and hankering for a driver's license, we scold them about buckling up. Are we surprised that they don't take us seriously on the belt thing? We've told them contradictory things. Rare is the teenager who can deal with that kind of misguidance.

So I thank Secretary Peters and her NHTSA associates for clarifying matters. Seat belts are necessary for everybody in all moving vehicles. That includes cars, trucks and buses. (In fact, in many European countries -- France comes to mind -- tourists are required to buckle up on tourist buses. That being the case, why should schoolchildren in the United States be exempt?) Peters's proposal will cost lots of money. In California, for example, where the installation of three-point seat belts on school buses is required, the state is spending an estimated $1,800 per bus to properly buckle in children.

The Department of Transportation's proposal could prove even more expensive because it also requires that school buses be fitted with higher seat backs to better protect children during accidents in which adults or older children who fail to buckle up are thrown from their seats.

As often happens when things cost money, there are many people who will oppose spending it. In this case, they will come up with tired excuses as to why school bus seat belts are unnecessary, possibly even harmful. They will cite the danger of unruly children using the belt buckles to injure one another. They will cite costly vandalism -- gummed-up belt connections, that sort of thing. They will point out the overall low incidence of school-bus crashes and fatalities, while conveniently ignoring the few tragic incidents in which belts on buses might have saved lives.

Finally, opponents will work in their cost-benefits analyses. There are an estimated 474,000 school buses nationwide, many of them running in cash-strapped communities that could use the government's proposed seat-belt installation money for other needs.