Seat-belt debate goes round and round

Michael Miller

Newport-Mesa Unified School District officials have voiced

disapproval for a state law that requires all newly purchased school

buses to come equipped with lap-shoulder belts this year.

The senate bill, signed in 2001 by former Gov. Gray Davis,

mandates lap-shoulder belts for all school buses purchased in

California after July 1 this year. Starting on the same date last

year, all new buses that carry 20 passengers or fewer had to feature

the added constraints. This July, the rule will extend to all buses

for schools and day-care centers statewide.

Although legislators and bus manufacturers have praised the new

law as a needed safety protocol, Newport-Mesa administrators

criticized it as a costly, time-consuming measure that fails to

provide any additional benefits to students.

“I think it’s unnecessary and expensive, and therefore, it takes

money away from the classroom,” said Pete Meslin, director of

transportation for Newport-Mesa. “There’s a lot of emotion involved

in this issue, but the number of children injured or killed in a

school bus accident is minuscule. It’s almost nonexistent. If we take

this much money to replace school buses, there may reach a point

where some districts can’t afford to bus certain students.”

Under the new law, school buses with no belts or with only lap

belts would still be legal on the roads after July, but any newly

purchased vehicles would have to feature the full set of straps.

Newport-Mesa has a fleet of about 75 buses, some with belts and some

without. Meslin said the district buys an average of five new buses

per year, and that the belts would increase the cost of each bus by

about $6,000.

“Our priority is teaching and learning,” Meslin said. “When all

the money has been allocated for that, perhaps we can squeeze out a

few new buses in the budget.”

Since buses with lap-shoulder belts accommodate fewer passengers

than ones without, districts will likely require more buses under the

new mandate; Meslin estimated that for every three buses Newport-Mesa

gives up, it will have to buy four more.

Apart from the financial issue, though, administrators questioned

whether the added seat belts would provide additional protection to

passengers.

“There’s a lot of dispute about whether the safety of them is the

best thing for buses,” said district spokeswoman Jane Garland.

“School buses are, in themselves, kind of tanks. They’re really

strong, and some people believe that the children would be safer

without being strapped in.”

On April 29 last year, there was an accident with a Newport-Mesa

school bus and a sport-utility vehicle near Newport Coast Elementary.

While the driver of the car was treated at the scene, no passengers

on the bus were injured. Meslin and Garland pointed to the incident

as an example of the safety of buses.

“The bus was so high, the car basically did not impact anywhere

where the children were seated,” Garland said.

Dennis Thorn, a bus driver for Newport-Mesa since 1999, said the

massive size and structure of buses makes them immune to most common

accidents.

“If someone rear-ends us, we may not even know it,” Thorn said.

“There’s 10 tons there, and it’s not going very far if a 2-ton car

hits it. The center of gravity is such that very few things are going

to be able to tilt a bus over on its side.”

Even without seat belts, school buses have long been considered

among the safest vehicles.

According to a 2004 report by the School Bus Information Council,

school buses averaged only 0.01 deaths per 100,000 passenger miles,

compared with 0.94 for regular cars and 0.06 for airlines.

The seating area on a school bus is much higher than that of a

car, which places passengers above the area of impact in a crash. In

addition, Meslin noted, the closeness of seats to one another

provides an automatic cushion in case of a jolt.

However, manufacturers have stressed the need for additional seat

belts in buses, saying that the new measures will better prevent

injuries. James Johnson, director of sales for SafeGuard Seats -- an

Indiana-based firm that produces restraints for many of the bus

companies that service Newport-Mesa -- argued that putting additional

belts in buses will send a message to students.

“In the past 10 years, 68,000 teenagers have died in auto crashes

and over half of those children were unbuckled, so we have a chance

to really enhance that message of wearing a seat belt in every

vehicle,” Johnson said, adding that “anybody who thinks that school

buses are safer without seat belts is probably misinformed.”

A number of parents in Newport-Mesa voiced support for the new

law, citing safety as a top concern.

“We have to put our kids in a seat belt if we’re driving from our

house to Ruby’s,” noted Michele Caston, the mother of a Lincoln

Elementary School third-grader. “What really concerns me is when kids

are on buses for longer periods of time, like going on a field trip.

I have friends who personally attend those field trips for the

specific purpose of driving their children, because they’re concerned

with the safety issue on school buses.”

Other parents, while favoring the mandate for lap-shoulder belts,

criticized the state for not providing funding to help purchase the

new buses. The current cost of busing for one child is $180 per year,

which comes out of parents’ pockets.

“I propose safety for our kids, but I propose that the state give

us the money to do it,” said Terry Torres, the PTA president at

Newport Heights Elementary School. “So it’s a double-edged sword.”

* MICHAEL MILLER covers education and may be reached at (714)

966-4617 or by e-mail at [email protected].