DaytonDailyNews.com

WASHINGTON — When their son, Zachary, was alive, Dana and Caroline Arend considered themselves "very involved" parents, the types that relished their 18-year-old son's achievements on and off the baseball field at Bluffton University.

So there was little question that when the National Transportation Safety Board released the results of an investigation into the March 2007 bus crash that caused the death of their son and six others, including four other Bluffton University baseball players, the Arends would be involved again, making the trip from their northwest Ohio home to Washington, D.C.

"He was our firstborn, our only son, and we had to be here for him," said Dana Arend.

On Tuesday, July 8, the NTSB found that the accident was caused in part because of confusing signs that led driver Jerry Niemeyer to believe he was continuing on the High Occupancy Vehicle lane on Interstate 75 south. In fact, he was exiting the highway, and the motorcoach plunged off an overpass after he inadvertently left I-75.

Niemeyer and his wife, Jean, both died the accident.

But the board also said a lack of passenger restraints contributed to the loss of lives — and it reiterated a call it's been making since the late 1960s to study putting seat belts in motorcoaches, It repeated that recommendation in a strongly worded 1999 report.

Twelve passengers were ejected from the motorcoach during the Bluffton accident, and at least one victim's parent has said he believes his son would still be alive today were seat belts available.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is currently studying the use of seat belts on motorcoaches.

NTSB chair Mark Rosenker — who grew up in Dayton — said he planned to call NHTSA administrator Nicole Nason to ask her to "expedite the process" of studying the seat belt issue.

NTSB member Deborah Hersman said since the board released its 1999 recommendations, 33 motorcoaches have crashed, causing 123 deaths, 1,031 injuries and 255 passenger ejections.

"In 1999, we asked for performance standards in two years," she said. "Now it's 10 years later and this is still tap-dancing."

Rae Tyson, a NHTSA spokesman, said his agency recently completed crash tests and is "moving very aggressively" toward performance standards.

"We can't just arbitrarily impose federal regulations without some basis in science," he said.

That's not enough for John Betts, whose son, David, died in the accident.

He believes the government will do nothing until Congress passes a bill introduced by Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, that beefs up safety standards in motorcoaches.

"By not having regulations in place, our sons are dead," he said.