During the past ten days, I have spoken to four
government bodies and one Illinois state senator about requiring three-point
seat belts on school busses. The reactions that I have received have
ranged from moderate enthusiasm to great enthusiasm.
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As reported in Sunday's Liberal News and Commentary, I spoke to the High School District 214 Board of Education last week, on Thursday, to request that all newly acquired school busses have three-point seat belts. The District 214 School Board liked the idea so much that they insisted that the new, 14-passenger busses, for which they will be seeking bids in the next few days, must have three-point seat belts.
On Monday, I spoke to the Des Plaines, Illinois, City Council, where a seat belt ordinance was on the agenda. I requested that they amend or substitute their pending seat belt ordinance to require that all school busses built after a date certain, such as January 1, 2002, and operated within the municipality, shall have three-point seat belts for all passengers. Their response was very positive. The aldermen concurred that it was a good idea and that they would look into it. The matter has been referred to the City Attorney, Dave Wiltse, to research the matter before coming back to the city council for a hearing.
On Tuesday, I made the same presentation to the Village of Schaumburg, Illinois, Board of Trustees at their Committee of the Whole meeting, where they, too, had a seat belt ordinance on the agenda. They were very enthusiastic about the idea. I said that all school busses should have three-point seat belts immediately, but suggested that, politically, it might not be possible to get passed an ordinance that would require schools to pay to retrofit busses which they already have. Trustees, however, indicated that they agreed that all school busses should have three-point seat belts right away. After all, since I had clearly proven the urgent need for three-point seat belts on school busses, why wait? Schaumburg referred the matter to the Public Safety Committee, with a hearing to be scheduled shortly.
On Wednesday, I met with Illinois State Senator David Sullivan (Republican, 28th District). After making my presentation, I asked for his sponsorship of or support for state-wide legislation mandating three-point seat belts on school busses. He thought it was a great idea, and said that he would call me in the next week to set up a meeting in his office to discuss the matter further. Earlier this year, I met with Illinois State Representative Carolyn Krause (Republican, 58th District), who strongly supports the idea but has been unable, as yet, to get the General Assembly to go along.
On Thursday, I met with the Elementary School District 21 Board of Education. They did not want to admit that they have been wrong for years by opposing the expenditure of funds for three-point seat belts on school busses, so they continue to stonewall on the issue.
All school busses should immediately be retrofitted with three-point seat belts. The cost of not immediately retrofitting busses is more severe injuries, more critical injuries and more deaths among children who ride school busses. That is too high a cost for children to be asked to pay. All of the deaths and virtually all of the injuries in bus crashes that occurred in recent weeks, including injuries to 41 students from Massey Hill High School in Fayetteville, North Carolina; 4 deaths and 37 injuries to students from Oak Hill Middle School in Newton, Massachusetts; 3 deaths and 6 injuries to students from Mountainburg Senior High School in Mountainburg, Arkansas; and 10 injuries to students from the Pasadena Unified School District in California; would have been completely avoided had the children been protected by three-point seat belts. Of those who would have been injured in those crashes, those injuries surely would have been significantly reduced if three-point seat belts had been worn.
Seat belts would prevent children from being catapulted through the bus and sometimes out the windows in side-impact and rollover accidents, which has caused the deaths of seven children and the injuries of hundreds of others in bus crashes just in the past few weeks.
District 214 made a formal response to my presentation. They were so moved by my message and they have directed the purchasing department to require three-point seat belts on the new school busses that they are going to purchase.
Some industry groups have said that seat belts do not increase safety for children on school busses, but that's a scam. What those industry groups are doing is comparing two-point seat belts versus no seat belts at all. Two-point seat belts are terrible. They cause you to snap in half and bang your head on the seat back in front of you, often causing brain damage that can be fatal. While no seat belts may be better than two-point seat belts on school busses, three-point seat belts are infinitely better than no seat belts at all. Here's why:
Busses are not fully padded. There are many exposed hard surfaces, such as hard glass windows, hard metal window frames, the ceiling, the walls and the floor. When a bus crashes, unbelted passengers fly through the air until they ram their heads, guts, necks or other parts of their bodies into something that stops them. Sometimes passengers slam down onto the tops of padded seat backs. This causes severe or fatal injuries if you are tossed up in the air and have your gut slammed down on the top of the seat back, smashing your internal organs, or have your neck slammed down on the seat back, breaking your neck and leaving you paralyzed. Other times, you slam your head at high speed into the window frames, or into and through the windows. That causes severe or fatal injuries to your brain from absorbing that kind of impact. When catapulted through the window of the bus, children are sometimes crushed to death by the bus rolling over them. All that can be completely prevented from happening by the use of three-point seat belts.
In addition, high seat backs are not effective in compartmentalize passengers because many crashes are not front-end-only. Besides that, there is absolutely no reason for a child to suffer the severe pain and injuries from being slammed into the seat back in front of him at 50 miles per hour when he could be fully protected from such hideous injuries and suffering simply by wearing a three-point seat belt. Should we get rid of automobile seat belts, just because the dash board is padded? Would you want some school official to tell you that it's OK for your face to slam into the dashboard of your car at 45 miles per hour during a crash because, after all, it's padded?
School busses are considered to be the safest vehicles on the road because they don't crash very often. However, when they do crash, they are the most unsafe vehicles on the road because they don't provide their passengers with three-point seat belts. In most cases, the deaths and injuries sustained by passengers in school busses that have crashed could have been completely avoided, had those passengers been protected by three-point seat belts.
In every case except one, government officials that I met with this month have been very enthusiastic in their support for three-point seat belts on school busses, once they have received the facts from me. I will continue to disseminate the information to as many government officials as I can as fast as possible.
Kids don't vote, and they don't have much money to make campaign contributions to legislators to get them to vote in support of protecting their lives with three-point seat belts on school busses, so I'll be their clout on this one.
Rob Sherman P. O. Box
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Buffalo Grove, IL 60089-7410
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Telephone: (847) 870-0700
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