School Bus Safety: The Frightening Facts-Part I
Another Disaster Waiting To Happen! But Where?
by Robert L. Stewart, Sr.
Exclusive to PropertyAndCasualty.com by National Insurance News Service
Recently, CNN aired a school bus segment on its IMPACT magazine program. The program was designed to alert the world that the transportation we entrust our children to every day offers no guarantee that the kids will have a safe round trip. And one of the biggest reasons for this is that, in spite of the fact that we know seat "restraints" are the way to make all vehicles safer, we seem to ignore the need in school buses.
CNN Correspondent Larry Lamotte pointed out, "It has been two decades since the U.S. government decided lap belts are not needed on school buses. Yet, in that time, injuries to students riding buses have risen steadily. CNN has found injuries are up almost double over the past 12 years, up almost triple if you go back the full 20 years."
The program pointed out that in New Jersey, the state voted to put lap belts in all new school buses, and according to an October/November 1996 article in School Bus Fleet magazine, lap belt mandates have been in place in the state of New York "for several years." However, as other research suggests, and we will address that shortly, lap belts do not provide the total solution!
Meanwhile, according to IMPACT, there are real horror stories when no restraints are available-a child getting flipped in the air, "hurled a half dozen rows forward, her spine crushed." And that came about when the driver of a bus near Hughes, AR, simply missed a gentle curve, hit an embankment and flipped over in a ditch. This child's paralysis was not caused by a devastating head-on accident or a violent collision of any type. In this case, any restraint would have saved her a lifetime in a wheelchair.
Let's take an insurance look at the problem. For openers, according to a commercial insurance market analysis prepared by Insurance Market Research Corp. (IMR), across the United States, the loss ratios for General Liability in 1996 for the school bus category (SIC 4150) is approximately 98 percent. When you consider we are discussing more than $463 million in premium, it suggests that we have some real problems and, as IMPACT pointed out, these problems are not only in the metropolitan areas of urban states.
It is particularly interesting to note that in New Jersey-where presumably lap belts are being installed in new buses-the 1996 loss ratio for General Liability insurance, according to the IMR report, exceeded 99 percent. In New York, where it seems that there is little or no enforcement of the lap belt law already on the books, the loss ratio for General Liability is a frightening 140 percent! Clearly, that covers a lot of non-relevant incidents, but "incidents" are what cause injuries.
Might the installation of lap belts in all school buses have prevented many-or any-of the deaths or injuries that occurred as a result of school bus accidents? Well, not really, opponents of mandatory restraints would argue, because there were 25 fatalities reported in school bus loading and unloading zones during the 1995-96 school year, according to information compiled by the National School Transportation Association.
In fact, according to other sources very much involved in researching effective restraints for the nation's school buses, lap belts are not really the answer. According to Don Jenkins, President and CEO of Mass Transit Safety, Inc. (MTS), Syracuse, NY, lap belts will not necessarily prevent severe head injuries if for example, upon impact, a student's head snaps forward against the seat back in front of him or her.
Other problems with lap belts evidently exist, according to the School Bus Fleet article. It points out "School boards say that if they require lap belt use, they'll have to put a monitor on each bus, because the driver can't be responsible for enforcement." There is other opposition, also, to mandating restraints, according to the 1996 article written by William Snyder.
He says that the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services issued a position paper (in early '96) citing a 1989 study by the National Academy of Sciences. It concludes that "there is no supportable need for safety belts on large school buses. With the limited resources available to our education system, we must allocate those resources where they will provide the maximum benefits to our children. To do otherwise would be irresponsible."
In the next segment of this article which reviews this extremely perplexing problem, we will examine an alternate solution, as perceived by Mr. Jenkins and his Mass Transit Safety associates. Their organization, according to Jenkins, has proof that their patented "R-Bar" restraint system-which conforms to the Federal Department of Transportation Regulation 222-(and designed specifically for school bus safety) is "not only a very effective alternative to lap belts, and a positive enhancement to 'compartmentalization,' it's actually fun to use, so children use it."
In Part II, National Insurance News Service will examine the MTS video presentations and make a report. We will also look into the situation in Florida and California, where school bus restraint legislation for new school buses is pending, and in Delaware where there also have been some new developments.