Why Seatbelts in School Buses are a Bad Idea
Why They Don’t Have Seatbelts on School Buses
“Weird School Bus” by KB35 is marked with CC BY 2.0.
The fact that school buses have no seatbelts may unnerve some people, but what if I told you that seatbelts would do more harm then good? Believe it or not, the law does not require school busses to have seatbelts. This is because school buses way more than 10,000 pounds. In fact school buses use a compact system. This means that the seats are packed closely together so that the seat in front of you becomes your seatbelt in a way. Also seatbelts would be hard to regulate. With a lot of kids riding the bus at a time it would be really hard to make sure that they were wearing seatbelts at all times. Finally, seatbelts would make it more difficult for the people to leave the school bus if there is an emergency due to the fact that there is a high chance they could get stuck endangering whoever is using them.
So school buses don’t have seatbelts for reasons like difficulty to enforce rules, the law not enforcing them, increased danger in emergencies, and the fact that school buses already use a system to keep people safe when riding in them. These reasons make it so that seatbelts may actually do more harm than good and are unnecessary.
RELATED STORIES:
https://www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/should-school-buses-have-seat-belts.aspx
https://www.motorbiscuit.com/why-dont-school-buses-have-seat-belts-the-reason-might-surprise-you/
TAKE ACTION:
Go here to learn about the new law ensuring seatbelts on school buses – https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?201+sum+HB15#:~:text=The%20bill%20requires%20each%20school,seat%20belt%20in%20every%20seat.
