School Bus Safety and Seat Belts

Why are school buses not required to have seatbelts? If children need to wear a seat belt in the family car, shouldn’t they be required to do the same in a school bus?  This issue has been hotly debated by parents and opposing experts, but currently the provinces do not mandate seat belts in school busses.

Transport Canada officials argue that school buses are safe without seat belts and further, seat belts may adversely affect child safety on school busses.  Although children may be thrown or jolted in their seating area during a crash, studies have shown that traveling in a school bus is still several times safer than traveling in a family car. Moreover, a provision requiring the use of seat belts would be difficult and expensive to implement.  School boards and bussing companies would likely need to replace the entire seat with one that can be fitted with seat belts, and any chosen seat belt mechanism or solution must work for widely varying heights and weights of children.

On the other hand, advocates of the ‘seatbelt movement’ argue that requiring seat belts is plain common sense. If adults are required by law to buckle up in their vehicles, then young children, our most vulnerable passengers, should logically require seat belts even more. Moreover, seat belt supporters believe that the hassles of implementation are justified if a seatbelt saves even one life.

Why seat belts are not necessary for school bus safety

According to Transport Canada, the department responsible for drafting policies and regulations relating to transportation services in Canada, seat belts are not required on school buses because these vehicles are compartmentalized. The padded seats with high backs are fitted closely together, so that the seats themselves can protect passengers in the event of a crash.

The system has worked so well that there have been only 11 fatalities and 3,600 injuries involving school bus accidents in all of Canada between 2003 and 2012. This is in sharp contrast to the 22,000 fatalities and 1.3 million injuries for other vehicle crashes during the same period.  A recent Globe Mail article reported statistics from Transport Canada and the Ontario School Bus Association that suggest that a child is 16 times safer in a school bus than riding in their family vehicle.  In fact, crash statistics show that school bus-related injuries occur far more often while bus students are pedestrians walking to or from the bus, than when they are riding on a bus.

With the traditional yellow paint and large profile, school buses are much easier to notice than smaller vehicles. Moreover, when a collision does happen, most vehicles will only be able to damage the space that’s below the floor line of the bus. As long as children stay within their compartmentalized seating areas, the cramped space will help reduce the force of the crash and the padded seats will help absorb the impact.

The Ministry of Transportation and Transport Canada have concluded, from studies, that seat belts on school busses do not protect passengers in the same way that they do in cars.  Seat belts in school busses are believed to have greater potential to cause neck and head injuries to passengers.  Seat belts need to be worn properly, secured snugly and on the upper thighs, in order to be effective.  However, this is problematic on a bus that carries young people of all ages, since seat belts would need to be properly adjusted for every student, particularly the very young, in order to be worn safely and reduce injury.

The advocates: why seat belts are needed

As previously mentioned, school buses rely heavily on compartmentalization to keep the passengers safe. The system works by packing heavily padded seats close together to minimize the force and impact of the crash. However, compartmentalization is designed to work best when the school bus is hit from the front or back. The safety benefits for busses are significantly less if the bus is hit from the side or if the bus rolls over.  Although the small windows of the bus will prevent the children from being thrown out of the vehicle, the fact of the matter is that they will still be ejected from their seats.

Many advocates reason that if having seat belts decreases the chance of injury even in the slightest, then their use is justified. Accordingly, installing this additional safety measure will give peace of mind to many concerned parents.

Transport Canada has determined that very young children, due to their small stature, do not benefit as much from compartmentalization as older children.  For this reason, Transport Canada has recommended that for children under 4 ½ years or under 18 kg, busses should include standard car child seats with a proper seat belt and tether strap, or the universal anchorage, and this latter feature has been installed in about 10 percent of seats, since April 2007.

The problem with seat belt installation

Aside from the additional costs involved in making the change, installing seat belts will require the use of stiffer seats in order to support the three-point design, particularly the shoulder strap. However, this change conflicts with the principles of compartmentalization, which supports the use of padded and flexible seats to reduce the force of the impact. So, the benefits of compartmentalization are diminished if seat belts are installed.

One of the greatest concerns is that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to ensure that every child wears their seat belt properly.  Checking that each child is properly belted would be a time-consuming task, whether for the driver or another staff member, and it would not guarantee that a child does not remove or re-adjust their harness during the drive. One solution is to assign an aide or bus monitor for each bus, but this would clearly be a substantial and ongoing expense that would require additional funding.

Bus accident liability

Just as it should be, the safety and security of children is expressed to be the highest priority for the Ontario school bus association.  The Ontario Ministry of Transportation carefully monitors school bus operators, and bus drivers are held to particularly high standards.  Yet, no one can entirely prevent the actions of reckless or careless drivers who may collide with a bus or with students in the vicinity of a bus stop.

Fortunately, children are rarely hurt in school bus collisions. Children are, however, at greater risk when they are crossing the road to catch a bus or after disembarking, when inattentive drivers don't watch for students or fail to stop when they see the red signal lights flashing.  In the unfortunate event of an accident involving injuries to a child, parents can represent their child in a claim for damages against the party at fault. Depending on the circumstances of the accident, the defendant in the claim may be the school district, bus driver, bussing company, another vehicle driver, or any combination of these when there is shared liability.

If you or a loved one were injured in a school bus accident or any other type of motor vehicle accident, call the car accident lawyers at Injury Lawyers of Ontario to find out how we can help during this difficult time.