U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters Announces New Federal School Bus Rules

School buses are statistically the safest mode of transportation on America's roadways today. Large school buses benefit from compartmentalization, which can be compared to eggs in an egg carton. In a large school bus, those weighing more than 10,000 pounds, the seats are narrowly spaced, padded, and have 20 inch high seat backs. In small school buses, those weighing less than 10,000 pounds, lap belts are required. Additionally, school buses are conspicuous and they follow the same routes every day at the same times.

Today, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters announced the changes in federal rule to make school buses even safer. You can find the article here. States will now have an option of whether or not they would like to have seat belts on larger buses. The padded seats will now be required to be 24 inches high, instead of just 20. Small buses will also be required to have lap and shoulder belts in them.

People are certain to have mixed emotions on the large school buses. Without seat belts, the large buses are still extremely safe, but, of course, every life is precious and even the small amount of fatalities linked to school bus crashes is too many. On the flip side, sometimes retro-fitting large buses with belts reduces the capacity of children the bus is able to transport. This would mean more children would be walking to school or riding in their own personal vehicles, which would not be as safe as being on the bus. So, the federal government is giving states the ability/authority to discern their needs as far as belts on large buses.