Why is it illegal not to wear your seatbelt, but their are no seatbelts on school buses for the children?

Question

If everyone is made to wear seatbelts, and you can get a ticket for not wearing one, why is it that school buses with children on them do not have seatbelts. Buses get into accidents too, right?

Answer 1

It's an irony. I disagree with making grown adults wear seatbelts like we are little children but then they turn around and don't make children wear them.. go figure...

Answer 2

You've received several very good answers and some not so good. One point that every one seems to have overlooked is wearing a seat belt not only protects you in an accident but also decreases the odds of you having one to begin with. A seat belt stabilizes you in the seat during any violent maneuver without it the only thing to stabilize you is the steering wheel. So if you are being thrown around and holding on to the wheel then you're completely out of control, wearing a seat belt can prevent this.
After working 20 years (now retired) as a paramedic and working numerous MVA's, I've only seen a few fatalities when seat belts were used ( if you apply enough energy to a vehicle nothing will protect you), the majority who were wearing a seat belt walked away. I can't count the number of DOS's I've seen who weren't wearing a seat belt. So, whether or not children are required to wear a seat belt on a bus is a mute point as their wearing of them doesn't alter the fact that it is important that you as a safe driver should.

Answer 3

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a981106a.html

Dear Cecil:

Why aren't seat belts mandatory in all school buses? --Kesti16, via AOL

Dear Kesti:

When I first considered this question the words "natural selection" bobbed spontaneously to mind. On examination, however, the main factors are safety and expense. Which one was more important to the people in charge I leave for you to decide.

Their ungainly appearance might suggest otherwise, but school buses are actually pretty safe. On average only 11 children are killed in school bus wrecks each year, compared to the 41,000-plus people who die in motor vehicle accidents overall. On a per-vehicle-mile basis the school bus fatality rate is one-seventh that of other passenger vehicles.

Several factors account for the good record. School buses are taller and heavier than most other traffic and generally travel at moderate speeds. In a collision, high seat backs prevent kids from being thrown great distances, and impact-absorbing materials soften the blow.

The question remains controversial, however. High seat backs don't help much when a bus is hit from the side or rolls over, and some people think more should be done. The national Parent-Teacher Association, for example, has called for seat belts on new buses. The federal government recently began a two-year investigation of school bus safety that will likely result in new precautions. According to Education Week more than two dozen state legislatures have considered mandatory seat belts over the years, although only New York and New Jersey currently require them.

Seat belts wouldn't necessarily make buses safer. On the contrary, some believe they would increase the number of serious injuries. Shoulder harnesses aren't practical in buses as currently designed, and lap belts are likely to cause more head and abdominal injuries because in a collision the wearer is jerked forward from the waist.

Then we get into the cost-benefit analysis. At $1,800 a bus, outfitting the 440,000 school buses in the U.S. would cost nearly $800 million--and when the annual death toll is only 11, how much lower can you go, realistically? Given that three times as many fatalities occur when students exit or enter buses, some think the money might be better spent educating the all-too-oblivious public that when the school bus's stop sign swings out, it means you.

Answer 4

Due to the high seat backs, seat belts on school buses do not provide impact protection. If a child wears a seat belt and the bus rolls over, the child will become entangled in the seat belt and fall several feet to the floor causing severe neck and head injury. (roof on a bus is 4 feet above the head in a overturned vehicle, unlike a car which is several inches) My father did research on this about 30 years ago and they found that in minor accidents, the seat belts provided no additional protection. However, when a bus with seat belts overturned, several of the test dummies were hanging by their necks, and some were held by the belts only to fall several feet and suffer a injury that could lead to a broken spine or neck injury. School buses are very safe and very rarely overturn so there is not much data to compare create seat belt vs no seat belt comparisons.

Answer 5

Yes, it's illegal to not wear your seatbelt in cars, Trucks, and Vans. But a big school bus is different.

Answer 6

I want to know why you can get a ticket for not wearing a seat belt going 10 MPH in a SUV on a residential street...

but you can go 75 MPH on the interstate with no helmet?

Seems to me driving the SUV at low speeds with no belt is much safer than blazing helmetless on the freeway on a bike.

Answer 7

That is something I've always wondered about. It makes no sense at all. Maybe they think that in an emergency, the children who did survive could not get out fast enough. Well, I'm sure oil man Bush is to busy driving up the price of oil so he can get richer, and doesnt have time to worry about it.

Answer 8

because there are seat belts in your car while the school bus doesn't have. Besides, school bus is larger than car and is presumed to be safer to ride with.

Answer 9

yuppp....that really buggs me too........i feel it should be my decision if i put the belt on........and the children need them, i seen them walking in bus as it was going down the hiway. the law shouldnt be for some of us........

Answer 10

isnt it a vulgar abuse of the law? they want our money, but the kids saftey dont matter