Have you ever wondered why your child’s school bus does not have seat belts? Isn’t that bad considering there are so many children’s lives at stake? But before you think negatively, you can be rest assured that there are valid reasons why school buses don’t have seatbelts.
It’s strange that you are required to fasten a seatbelt in a car yet in the bus full of kids; there aren’t any except for the driver who has one attached to his seat. Read on to find out why school buses don’t have seat belts which is something very curious that no one really cared to ask about. This is almost baffling to many but here are the many reasons why.
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A school bus is as strong as a tank when it comes to traffic and other vehicles. If a car crashes into a school bus, the most probable outcome will be severe damage to the car instead. Because of low speeds and slow acceleration, damage to passengers and the vehicle is low.
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The seats of a school bus are manufactured with heavy padding and specially designed to absorb maximum impact. The seats, in fact, are better than seat belts and protect kids better from crashes. If a school bus crashes, the seats would then protect the children from serious injury.
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Heaven forbids such thoughts but seat belts could impede faster evacuation in the event of emergencies such as if the school bus loses control and ends up in a body of water or if it catches fire. In such instances, a child’s life would depend on how fast they can be free from their seat and seatbelts would make that impossible. Such a problem could result in loss of precious lives.
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Equipping school buses with seatbelts that have metal accessories like buckles is a dangerous idea. Children could easily use them as weapons to fight with each other. Even monkeying around with a seat belt could cause injury to another child such as if it hits the eye or the head.
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One Redditor with the ID SirMichael_7 remarked how when he was in high school, the school district decided to fit all buses with seat belts. The expense was large with the project costing several thousand dollars for the standard lap belt. After three weeks they again were made to spend almost the same amount to have the belts removed when one kid used the belt to split another girls head wide open.
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Every school bus is designed with several flashing warning signs. The reason they are painted yellow is due to the high visibility of the color that can be detected even in low light.
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School buses also come with two flashing stop lights on either side. The vehicle is driven at slow speeds on residential streets which mean a minimal chance of accidents and heavy damage like collisions. Every residential area has a speed limit of 30 and below.
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The seat of a school bus is really high which makes it safe for children as it absorbs any type of impact shock in an accident. It is also thickly padded making the absorbing feature stronger.
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If there was a seatbelt involved, the shock would target the head and neck, but the large size of the seats spreads the shock of an impact evenly. Together with the heavy padding the seats can cushion a blow causing the child to experience less whiplash due to the force of the impact being distributed throughout the body.
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It is the practice for school buses to drive through residential areas at slow speed of 30 and below. This minimizes the chances of collision and even if there is one, the damage will be minimal and most probably only affect the vehicle and not the passengers.
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US federal law requires seat belts in school buses that weigh less than 10,000 pounds but in several states, the debate continues as to why a bus should not have seatbelts if trucks and cars have them. Yet there are many states where school buses don’t have seatbelts.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NHTSA, even without seatbelts school buses are the safest mode of transportation. Between 2005 and 2014, 1,191 crashes involving school buses were reported which is less than 1 % of 331,730 fatal crashes in those 10 years. Only six states have laws that require school buses to have seatbelts.
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