Seat Belts on School Busses

[Crazy Volvo Guy]

Yes, great for smacking bullies back in the head with.  I never took any shit from them as a kid.  The best way to deal with a bully was to beat the shit out of him and tell them to fuck off.

Sad part?  Today, that would get you in deep, deep shit with the school...while the bully would get a slap on the wrist...if even that.

Schools, advocating and actively encouraging bullying since the 1990s.

[1995hoo]

Going back to the seat belts, I seem to recall a period in the late 1980s where some of the newer school buses here in Fairfax County had them. None of us ever wore them and, as others have suggested, some people used to swing the buckles at each other (the buckles were airplane-style). I assume they stopped installing them because every once in a while the local "junk papers" (the free papers they throw in your driveway once a week or give away at the Metrorail) might have someone asking why school buses don't have them.

The talk of bullying makes me think how I'm glad not to be a kid today what with mobile phone videos and the ability for people to share them with the whole world on the Internet.

[SteveG1988]

Yes, great for smacking bullies back in the head with.  I never took any shit from them as a kid.  The best way to deal with a bully was to beat the shit out of him and tell them to fuck off.

Sad part?  Today, that would get you in deep, deep shit with the school...while the bully would get a slap on the wrist...if even that.

Schools, advocating and actively encouraging bullying since the 1990s.

In 2006 i was in history class, guy kept throwing stuff ay my head, i snapped when we had a substitute, hit him then attempted to run off once i realized what i had done, he tackled me infront of the assistant principal office (right around the corner) and we both got hit with 3 days suspension

[hbelkins]

Veering off-topic here, but there are laws against bullying, in practice if not specifically by name. Last time I checked, such things as assault, theft by unlawful taking, harassing communications and terroristic threatening are illegal.

I honestly don't see why more parents of bullied children don't seek criminal charges against the little urchins doing the bullying. When the parents have to hire lawyers and miss work to have their spawn's behaviors addressed in the court system, maybe they'd finally get the point and do something to rein in their little miscreants. It might be juvenile court and the little beasts might not be stuck with records, but it would certainly inconvenience the parents enough to make them make their brats behave.

[triplemultiplex]

I honestly don't see why more parents of bullied children don't seek criminal charges against the little urchins doing the bullying. When the parents have to hire lawyers and miss work to have their spawn's behaviors addressed in the court system, maybe they'd finally get the point and do something to rein in their little miscreants. It might be juvenile court and the little beasts might not be stuck with records, but it would certainly inconvenience the parents enough to make them make their brats behave.

Lawyers cost money and court dates cost time for plaintiffs, too.
The shittiest thing about being bullied the shame of admitting that some assface is bullying you to someone of authority; even one's own parents.  It's a really difficult obstacle to overcome.  I never admitted to anyone the shit I got from certain dicktards in my youth.  It was embarrassing.



I have yet to see one good argument against children wearing seat belts on the damn bus.  Travel by motor vehicle is the single most dangerous thing kids do on a typical day, statistically speaking.  Just because you or I didn't have belts doesn't mean that was the right way to go.  It is literally the equivalent of saying, "I've never been in an accident; why should I wear a seat belt?"

Here everyone, just watch some little children being maimed and killed and see if you still think they shouldn't wear belts.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=school+bus+accident&oq=school+bus+accident
Look at any of that at come back and tell me school buses shouldn't have fucking seat belts.  You will be wrong.

[Molandfreak]

The shittiest thing about being bullied the shame of admitting that some assface is bullying you to someone of authority; even one's own parents.  It's a really difficult obstacle to overcome.  I never admitted to anyone the shit I got from certain dicktards in my youth.  It was embarrassing.

Maybe I got off lucky, but I never had to worry about losing friends over being a tattletale. I even blackmailed the guy that hacked my email that I would tell authority if he kept it up (of course, authority wouldn't help so I took matters into my own hands). Never had a problem with that. If you lose some friends, they were shitty friends.

[triplemultiplex]

The shittiest thing about being bullied the shame of admitting that some assface is bullying you to someone of authority; even one's own parents.  It's a really difficult obstacle to overcome.  I never admitted to anyone the shit I got from certain dicktards in my youth.  It was embarrassing.

Maybe I got off lucky, but I never had to worry about losing friends over being a tattletale. I even blackmailed the guy that hacked my email that I would tell authority if he kept it up (of course, authority wouldn't help so I took matters into my own hands). Never had a problem with that. If you lose some friends, they were shitty friends.

Yeah, I'm not talking about losing face among peers.  I'm talking about telling mommy or daddy or a teacher or whatever that somebody's picking on you.  Asking for help in a situation where society strongly suggests you take care of it yourself; in contrast to the bold tales of young men who are able to stand up to their aggressors; here and elsewhere.

[US81]

I'm glad there has been a return to the topic of seat belt use. I'm going to cautiously proceed in the hope that discussion can be civil.

Just having a seat belt across a child does not prevent injury - it must fit the child correctly. Plenty of kids get injured by ill-fitting or misplaced seat belts in cars and trucks. If a seat belt does not sit across the bony part of a child's hips but has moved up across the abdomen, compression can injure organs and the lumbar spinal cord causing paraplegia. Misplaced shoulder belts cause neck and chest trauma that can be lethal. As I pointed out above, belts with adult-sized anchor points will allow a child to submarine under the belt; this may only cause lower extremity trauma but at high speeds does not prevent the child from becoming a projectile. This is why child seats and booster seats are recommended or mandated.

So, does the risk of seat belt (mis-)use outweigh the risk of being completely unrestrained? Can we mitigate these risks? How do we design systems that are adaptable to child-sized and adult-sized children?

[hbelkins]

My understanding is that modern school bus seats are designed to eliminate the need for seat belts as a safety item.

[US81]

My understanding is that modern school bus seats are designed to eliminate the need for seat belts as a safety item.

The concept is called compartmentalization. Each row of high-back seats form a compartment that encloses each group of children to prevent them from being thrown very far. Those few tests that have been done show this works - sort of - for front-impact and rear-impact but very poorly for side-impact.

[SteveG1988]

I remember a few buses in my town still having no seatbelts, they were made in the 80s. SOme had belts retrofitted and others just were retired after 12 years, which is the law for conventional style buses, not the transit style.

[triplemultiplex]

My understanding is that modern school bus seats are designed to eliminate the need for seat belts as a safety item.

I would characterize it as "reducing harm to unrestrained passengers" more so than "eliminating the need for seat belts."

It's the best they can do since 'we' can't be bothered to mandate one of the most effective safety devices in all of transportation on the damn school bus.  Seat belts have literally saved millions of lives.  Yet somehow there's always an excuse not to use them on school buses?   "Oh it's to hard to make kids wear em; they might hit each other with them; they might not wear them right; they might turn them into a noose and hang themselves..." I may have made one of those up, but I still call bullshit.

Considering the stupid crap society does to ostensibly protect children, this one seems like really small potatoes.  Motor vehicle collisions are the single greatest physical threat in the US to everyone's little rug rat, nose-miner and wunderkind.  I have yet to hear a good argument against sticking seat belts in buses and making the little bastards wear 'em.  If it was already required, it wouldn't even be a debate.  We'd all be like, "Of course you wear your seat belt on the school bus.  What are you, stupid?"  This is not as hard as some want it to be.

[DaBigE]

My understanding is that modern school bus seats are designed to eliminate the need for seat belts as a safety item.

How about coach busses or city busses?

[Jardine]

IIRC, this topic merited some national discussion back in the late 70s.  The prevailing argument was that it would cost (at that time) $100 million dollars to retrofit all the nations school buses, and they would save (if used properly and consistently) a literal handful of children every year.

On the other hand, $100 million dollars spent on sanitation in 3rd world countries, for instance, could save tens of thousands of children.  So too vaccinations, and several other programs, both here and abroad.

So it came down to priorities and how badly folks wanted to spend money to save a (relatively) small number of children.


I guess today, if our nation had a large surplus of cash, gold, jewels, and silver we would be discussing whether or not to be installing airbags on every seat . . .

[PColumbus73]

Generally speaking, most crashes involving school buses are relatively minor, so there won't be a need for seatbelts on buses.

[1995hoo]

Generally speaking, most crashes involving school buses are relatively minor, so there won't be a need for seatbelts on buses.

I remember being on the school bus when the driver rear-ended someone at the old one-lane bridge on Woodburn Road here in Fairfax County in the late 1970s. We were all fine. The car, not so much–it was a VW Beetle and the school bus's slightly elevated bumper appeared to have done some damage to the car's engine (obviously it was a rear-engined air-cooled Beetle).

I've heard some of the school bus manufacturers have contended that the seats' design (not a lot of space between them and high backs) makes seat belts of lesser value because kids can't easily be thrown any distance. I gather seats have higher backs now than they did when I was a kid (we moved in the early 1980s and after moving we walked to school). I have no idea whether there's any validity to that.