Seat belts save lifes.

And dignity.

I nenver do either, and honestly, probably won't. But for liabilities sake, you would think the companies would require that everyone buckle up before the driver starts out.

lincasanova:

A good reminder - glad you are o.k.

Sandy

I always, always, always wear my seatbelt when in any car, shuttle, or limousine.

Always. Many of the drivers of SuperShuttles I have been in have requested passengers to buckle up.

In cars, limos and standard seating I ALWAYS do, too.. but this hotel shuttle had the side perimeter seats, a few standard bus type seats, and the long one in the back.

I hadn't even noticed the seatbelt.. nor have I ever seen anyone on the side seats (or any) buckling up in my years of hotel/rental car shuttle-airport 5 minute trip travel.

On long distance buses, I wear them. On city busses.. never occurred to me.. nor do they exist, as far as I know.

Also a 100% seat belt user - but I don't recall ever seeing them on vehicles with side facing seats. I don't think seat belts were designed for side facing seats - while they would keep you in your seat and prevent ejection from the vehicle, which is one of the prime functional benefits of seat belts. In a crash at a higher speed, seat belts are also designed to put the majority of the crash impact on bony body parts - which is why they tell you to keep it low over hips/pelvis. In a side facing seat that is not the case.

Great reminder. I was on one shuttle when the driver refused to go until the last person put on her seat belt -- she didn't want to.

But this reminds me -- sorry it's off subject -- why aren't there seat belts on school buses again?

the argument against school bus seatbelts that I have always read is that it would slow evacuation of students in case of crash; and that the seats and seat back construction prevents injury. Have also read that they could be used as weapons or that the buckle, when not in use would hit people and hurt them. None of these make logical sense to me.

I have to wonder about the folks who don't wear seat belts. Apparently there is NOBODY else, no family, no friends, etc., who would be the least bit affected emotionally, financially, etc., if they were injured. Sounds kinda like the working definition of selfish to me not to mention the needless work it can generate for health care providers (yeah, I know I'm biased).

I, myself, was very surprised and asked myself why I hadn't searched or why it hadn't even occurred to me to look for a seatbelt on that back bench.. or other times when I am on that side bench in a rental car shuttle with my bag at my feet, etc. Frankly, I have been on many many of these shuttles and never even seen any motions of putting on seatbelts, nor looking for them.

That is why I posted, as in all other circumstances I am an ADAMANT seatbelt wearer.. and hope others who also use these type shuttles protect themselves in the future.

Lin, I hope you feel fine, nothing that a glass of wine can't cure (emotionally)

Good reminder for all, I admit ignoring the seat belts on shuttles.

Thanks.. it was a wake-up call, that's for sure!

> why aren't there seat belts on school buses again?

The actual reason is simple, and it's the same reason seat belts aren't on transit buses: people -- and particularly kids -- won't wear them. The expense necessary to install seat belts, when they won't be used anyway, is better spent on other means to make buses safe. This includes stop signs that are more visible, more seat padding, better crash protection, etc.

In addition, it is important not to overlook ALL the consequences of a government injunction. If mandatory seat belt use makes fewer children ride the bus in the first place, the inevitable result will be MORE deaths when children go to school, not less. A bus without a seat belt is safer than a car with one, believe it or not.

For a full discussion of the numerous studies on this issue, as well as the mandatory, official reports to Congress, check out

http://tinyurl.com/SchoolBusSeatBelt

Believe it or not, the people who make decisions on what to require in school buses really ARE concerned and knowledgable about children's safety. The idea that buses are required to have stop signs with flashing lights, but not seat belts, because people don't care, is ridiculous.

Paul, your "government-sounding babble" including that in those expensive "studies" makes a little sense except for one glaring issue. "kids won't wear them". Duh. Isn't that the basic problem -- that we seem to be afraid to tell children what they MUST do and enforce rules?

If our society has indeed reached the point where enforcing the wearing of seat belts on school buses will cause fewer children to ride the buses and therefore put themselves in danger -- well -- we must be totally beyond help.

Why offer healthy food -- kids won't eat it, so just let them be obese?

Don't waste money distributing condoms to sexually active teens, they won't use them anyway?

The list could go on and on. Let what the kids want to do control their own safety! Great idea.

I never wear a seatbelt in a bus, taxi or other public conveyance but always do in a private car. I guess it makes no sense. Glad you're ok and thanks for the wake up call.

NeoPatrick, let me ask you ONE question:

What do you want government money to be spent on: installing seatbelts on school buses, or measures that will actually reduce children's death and injuries as they travel to school?

Studies (and I'm not sure why you put that word in quotes) have shown the former will result in higher government expenditures and more children's deaths. If that is how you want government money to be spent, just to satiate your desire to show who's the boss, please understand why others would prefer lower expenditures and fewer deaths.

I'll say it again: seat belts are not put on school buses for the same reason they're not put on transit buses.

Also remember that seat belts need to be fastened properly, at your waist not around your belly. The OP had a scary ride down the aisle, but if the seatbelt were fastened but fastened incorrectly, it could have been a vacation spent in the hospital with a bad belly ache.

Say what??? What's the difference?

So sorry lin! Glad you are okay!

Why did I put the word studies in quotes? Because as most people know you can make a study say anything you want it to, and one of these studies starts out with the assumption that if there were seat belts on school buses, then kids wouldn't take the buses. How did they arrive at that decision? I repeat what's wrong with REQUIRING students to wear them. Sounds just like the "studies" that said if smoking is banned in restaurants then no one will go to them any more and business will suffer. There were dozens of those studies made everywhere were smoking bans were proposed. Well guess what, it nearly every case, that assumption proved to be totally false, so the "studies" were totally invalid. A study is not much of a study when such a guestimate of what will happen is assumed from the start. Get it?

Not surprisingly, NeoPatrick, you didn't even try to answer the ONE question I asked.

The studies I noted made the following conclusion based on FACTS, not assumptions:

"The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) have come to similar conclusions. The NTSB concluded in a 1987 study of school bus crashes that most fatalities and injuries occurred because the occupant seating positions were in direct line with the crash forces. NTSB stated that seat belts would not have prevented most of the serious injuries and fatalities from occurring in school bus crashes. In 1989, the NAS completed a study of ways to improve school bus safety and concluded that the overall potential benefits of requiring seat belts on large school buses were insufficient to justify a Federal mandate for installation. NAS also stated that the funds used to purchase and maintain seat belts might be better spent on other school bus safety programs and devices that could save more lives and reduce more injuries."

The complete text of the report is available at this pdf:
http://tinyurl.com/NAS-Study222-pdf

If you want to show me where in this report a questionable assumption was made, I would be interested. My read-through (I admit it was not complete) showed no such assumptions were made. Page 87 of the report, for instance, states "Of the 42 districts [in N.Y.] that have formally mandated seat belts, the following levels of seat belt use were reported: 0 to 25 percent, 27 districts; 26 to 50 percent, 4 districts; 51 to 75 percent, 5 districts; 76 to 100 percent, 6 districts." In other words, the study used facts, NOT assumptions, to reach their conclusions.

When you are willing to answer the VERY simple question I asked, let me know.

It's funny what habits we have when in certain situations/vehicles and not in others. I am a big believer in seat belts (and bicycle helmets, by the way).

I grew up with the seat belts on in the car front seat rule, but didn't wear one in back seat (seems the reasoning was no windshield to go through). To set a good example for the family children, I started wearing one in back seat and when I visited Europe all my colleagues wore them in all seats, so now I think how strange not to wear one in back seat before.

Same on buses. Once would ride Greyhound etc. without a thought. Saw the bus rollover accidents on TV and thought belts made sense. Now I look for them with mixed success on long haul bus trips throughout the world. I am usually very much in the minority wearing one.

Also with the shuttle. When a van type it seems more like a personal vehicle and I can usually find the belt. In larger vehicles the seats are different, belts hard to find/sort out, and most people don't seem to put them on, so it's a mixed bag.

I did find belts on one side facing seat on the type of shuttle you describe and was the only person wearing one. Other times I haven't noticed them. With all the luggage, curves/ramps, drivers in a hurry, and crowded driving conditions around airports I have thought of this the last few rides. I will search them out for sure next time.

"What do you want government money to be spent on: installing seatbelts on school buses, or measures that will actually reduce children's death and injuries as they travel to school?"

The question you speak of (which was not your ONLY question, however) is neither simple nor worth answering.
I can't or don't care to answer such a silly one sided question as you asked, which already makes a clear assumption that seat belts will not reduce children's death and injuries.

Asking such a question is like saying, "are you going to have that colonoscopy or would you rather die" or "are you going to vote for candidate A or are you going to vote for candidate B who will actually do something?"

Such questions are meaningless since your question was phrased as choosing one possibility which you already said was the right one or choosing the other which you've already stated is the wrong one. What kind of question is that?

I did answer ONE of your other questions, though, which is why I put quotes around studies. I see you don't agree with me, but like studies about drugs, smoking, health items, and many other topics-- depending on the study, it can show totally opposite results.

And reporting the percentage of seatbelt use where seatbelts are required is meaningless, since clearly the rules were simply not being enforced. How can they even say "formally mandating seat belts" and then say they allowed 75% of the students not to wear them?

Here's a thought. I wonder how much money was spent on the studies themselves instead of ANYTHING constructive that actually would save lives or add safety? or let me put it to you this way -- the way you would probably ask a question:

Would you rather the government spend money on studies or on doing something that would actually help increase safety of school students.

By the way, I originally only asked a simple question myself, as to why seat belts aren't required on buses. Perhaps some of these studies are right, I won't pretend to be an expert. My arguments and comments above are not so much that I am right that seat belts SHOULD be on buses, I really don't know and that's why I asked in the first place, but the post was more about how silly some of the reasoning was in the way it was described -- particularly issues like assuming that if they put seat belts on buses then kids wouldn't take the bus, and calling it "mandatory use" when no one was required to use them.

First of all, NeoPatrick, permit me to explain some basic English grammar:

"Why did you think my statement beginning with 'I don't understand' was a question?"
is a sentence called a QUESTION.

"I don't understand why you thought my statement beginning with 'I don't understand' was a question."
is a sentence called a STATEMENT.

Statements are not questions. While I appreciate your kindness in trying to settle my lack of understanding, I only asked one question.

And to answer one of your questions to me, I would rather the government spend money on studies on how to maximize student safety. If they don't, the government might very waste money on things -- like seatbelts on buses -- that the NAS and the NTSB agree would not work as well as alternatives. My dichotomy is NOT a false one, as we already know (to the best of our present knowledge) that seatbelts will NOT help student safety as well as other measures. That issue was settled 23 years ago.


> depending on the study, it can show totally opposite results

If you can point out studies that would lead to conclusions different from what the NTSB reached, I would be interested. If you're just going to state, out of thin air, that such studies exist, I hope you understand why I have difficulty taking such a statement seriously.


> What kind of question is that?

It's a "rhetorical" question. However, as you can see, the choice really IS as stark as what I presented.

OK, forgive me. This probably belongs in the "I must need a life outside of Fodors" forum, but this subject started to intrigue me so I did some reading and googling.

First, I suddenly realized that the single study and paper linked above by Paul Rabe was primarily based on 1977 studies with some further updates as recently as 1988. I won't state the obvious regarding studies that are 22 years old!

What did I find while Googling "seat belts on school buses"?

1) This surprising FACT:
Update: In November 2007, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced a federal proposal to make school buses safer by requiring higher seat backs and setting new seatbelt standards for the nation's 474,000 school buses. >>>The proposal was approved in October 2008<<<, but all sections of the new safety standard will not be in full effect until 2011.

So it would seem that over the course of the past 20 years, even the US Dept. of Transporatation has changed its mind about the idea of seat belts in school buses.

2) I found dozens of school districts and even whole states which have already approved measures to require seat belts, but in many cases it is not done. Why? Over and over the same reason is given -- cost and practicality.

3) I found numerous references to specific accidents and deaths in which it was shown that seat belts would have prevented the deaths. I was unable to find a single reference to seat belts where they are installed causing any injuries.

4) Clearly over and over, two other reasons are given for not moving forward more rapidly on installing safety belts in school buses -- one is that school buses are already the safest means of transportation for students, more are killed or injured in cars or on bikes or even walking to school. So there is not so much pressure to make what is already the safest form of school transportation even safer. But tell that to the parents of those who have died in such accidents -- "too bad, but it doesn't happen often enough to warrant our spending that kind of money". The other reason sometimes given for not moving faster on installing them (in addition to cost) is that "no clear consensus has ever been reached on how much safer the school buses would be with seat belts. Please note there is a dramatic difference between "there would be NO safety benefit" and "a consensus cannot be reached on HOW MUCH safety benefit there would be."

What didn't I find while googling?

Any other study or commentary so completely biased and one sided that there was no benefit to seat belts in school buses -- as the one that had been linked and quoted above. Perhaps that's because I only reviewed the first 50 or so Google hits and didn't go back to what people thought 22 to 33 years ago!

Want some interesting reading (if like me you have no life)?

http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/safety/articles/122574/article.html

http://www.wfsb.com/news/22591593/detail.html

http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local-beat/Gov-Orders-Seatbelts-On-New-School-Buses--85766637.html