As reported in the March 29th edition of Liberal News and Commentary, my daughter, Dawn, went to the School Board meeting that month to ask for seat belts on busses used for field trips. In the short six weeks after that presentation, two horrific disasters took place involving school busses being used for field trips.
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In the first tragedy, forty-six students and others from Massey Hill High School in Fayetteville, North Carolina, were injured on April 6th when their bus rolled over one mile north of the at the Georgia-Florida border while en route to Orlando for a band competition. According to a story in the April 7th edition of the Fayetteville Observer, entitled Massey Hill student's band trip takes a tragic turn, everybody started flying around the bus when the bus rolled because the bus did not have seat belts. Other subsequent stories, available by going to the Search feature of www.fayettevilleonline.com and selecting news stories from April, "any date," 2001, and using the key word, "Massey," indicate that some of the students suffered hand injuries that were so severe that they will never be able to use their hands again.
Look at this picture of the bus, from the Fayetteville Online story:
It's virtually intact, except for a few busted windows and compartment doors. The bus is not crushed and crumpled, like a subcompact that has crashed head-on into an SUV. If the kids had been wearing three-point seat belts, they would have walked away, unscathed, as if they had made it to Orlando and had ridden on a Disney World roller coaster. Instead, many have injuries so severe that they will never recover, as long as they live, not to mention the permanent emotional scars to the passengers and everybody else in the community that cares about them.
In the second tragedy, four students from Oak Hill Middle School in Newton, Massachusetts, were killed and dozens others injured on April 27th when their bus rolled over in New Brunswick, Canada, while en route to Halifax, Nova Scotia, for a band competition. According to a story in the April 27th edition of the Boston Globe, entitled 4 Newton students killed, 36 hurt in Canada bus crash, the students who weren't killed were in "bad shape, every one of them." Please note that the Boston Globe story page includes links to more than a dozen other stories about the catastrophe. The students who were killed died because they were either fully or partially ejected from the bus. The bus rolled over on top of them.
What a miserable way to die. What a miserable way to jeopardize the safety of children, who depend on us to make decisions that will protect their safety. All because America is too goddam cheap to equip busses with seat belts. If Greg, Kayla, Melissa and Stephen, as pictured below in the Boston Globe story, had been wearing three-point seat belts, they would have walked away from the accident with nothing worse than some cuts from flying broken glass.
Look at those happy faces. Now those kids are all dead. Every one of them. Wouldn't it have been worth the extra expense to keep those shining faces smiling, instead of stuffing them into body bags because they got crushed and smashed to death while in total terror by an out-of-control bus that rolled on top of them while they watched it happen to themselves?
New bus seating technology is available that integrates three-point seat belts right into the seats. One company that markets that product is Busbelts Development Corporation. State Representative Philip Travis is so impressed by this new technology that he has introduced House Bill 1084 into the Massachusetts State Legislature. That bill would require, by July 1, 2005, three-point seat belts for all passenger seats in all large school busses. The legislation does not specify any particular manufacturer.
A hearing was held on the merits of that bill last month, on April 10th. The catastrophe involving the death of the four kids from that same state of Massachusetts occurred two weeks AFTER the hearing. The bill is still pending in the legislature.
I will attend the next meeting of my local public elementary district school board on Thursday, May 17th, to ask that the School Board consider the availability of this new technology when making its decision this year on whether to change Board policy and begin to require seat belts on District school busses. Gary Murphy, the President of Busbelts Development Corporation, is so impressed by the efforts of my daughter and me that he is going to fly in to Chicago to attend the school board meeting with me. He will have with him one of the seats with the integrated seat belts.
Mr. Murphy will also be the in-studio guest on my radio show the same day. Joining us on the air from Boston to talk about the issue will be State Representative Travis, who is sponsoring the Massachusetts legislation to require seat belts on all school busses in that state within four years. Also joining us in the studio will be the local representative for Busbelts, who will be driving in from South Bend, Indiana. Then, on Saturday, May 19th, I will tape the June edition of my television show, with the South Bend rep for Busbelts in the studio to talk about the new seating technology and demonstrate how well it works. If you are in the Chicago area, be sure to catch the Rob Sherman Television Show next month to see the new seats.
My daughter will never ride a school bus that doesn't have seat belts.
If more parents would take a similar stand, this battle could be won this year.
Remember Rosa Parks? When she took a stand with respect to bussing, nothing changed, but when the whole community backed her up on it, things did change.
Maybe, this time, my presentation will be compelling enough on its own to generate the necessary change in my community. Maybe that will be the impetus to propel a national movement to protect all children the way I protect mine.
Rob Sherman P. O. Box
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