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BLUFFTON BUS CRASH LESSONS
Some states toughen bus safety standards
Feds, who have relied on passive restraints, are revisiting the issue; House panel holds hearings
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Thursday, July 19, 2007
WASHINGTON — The European company that built the bus that plunged off an overpass in Atlanta on March 2 and killed five members of the Bluffton University baseball team equips its buses in Europe with seat belts.
It has little choice. The European Union requires passenger belts on motorcoaches. The EU began requiring either lap belts or lap-shoulder belts in 1997. Australia since 1994 has required all newly manufactured motorcoaches to have a three-point restraint system.
John Betts, his wife Joy, son Jacob, and daughters Rachel and Sarah at their Bryan home April 5 with a bat they received in memory of their son and brother David, who died in Atlanta in a bus crash along with four members of his Bluffton University baseball team.The United States government does not require passenger seat belts, however, and the only people wearing them on the Bluffton bus were the driver and his wife. Both died.
The Bluffton bus was manufactured by Van Hool, a company in Belgium.
"They make the stinking buses with the three-point restraint already," said John Betts of Bryan, whose son, David, died in the March 2 crash. "The shame of this is ... that we are following Europe and Australia in motorcoach safety."
Some states have already adopted laws strengthening safety precautions in school buses and motorcoaches.
California has had a law since 2005 requiring lap and shoulder belts on all newly purchased school buses, and Texas passed a similar law that will take effect on Sept. 1, 2010. And in 2011, Texas will require all motorcoaches chartered by school districts to have lap and shoulder belts.
A handful of other states — including Florida, New York and New Jersey — have instituted laws requiring lap restraints in new school buses, but those laws do not address motorcoaches.
For decades, the federal government has primarily relied upon compartmentalization — a passive restraint system where passengers are nestled like eggs in a cushion of shock-absorbent padding and strategically placed seats — to protect passengers on school buses and motorcoaches. The system has proven particularly effective during front or rear-impact accidents, but less so in rollovers or multi-impact crashes, according to Steve Wallen of SafeGuard, a company that manufactures child safety seats and school bus seats equipped with seat belts.
Both federal analysts and motorcoach lobbyists have historically argued in favor of a passive-restraint system, on the theory that it protects all passengers, as opposed to simply those who choose to wear a seat belt. They've also argued that buses are among the safest vehicles on the road.
According to federal data, an average of 22.7 people died in motorcoach accidents per year over the last decade. And an average of 21 school-age children die in school bus accidents each year — six passengers inside the bus and 15 pedestrians around the bus.
Those numbers are of little comfort to Betts.
"We have seat belts in cars. We have seat belts in airplanes. Why don't we have them on motorcoaches?" he asks.
NHTSA last week began revisiting the school bus seat belt issue, organizing a panel of school administrators, safety experts and bus manufacturers to gather data. They plan to draft a proposed rule addressing safety standards in school buses by the end of the year.
The government agency is also completing research with the Canadian government that could lead to increased safety precautions on motorcoaches, according to a NHTSA spokeswoman.
In Congress, the House Transportation Committee has held hearings on motorcoach safety, and Rep. Paul Gillmor, R-Old Fort, is drafting legislation aimed at improving safety for motorcoaches.
Ken Presley, a spokesman for the United Motorcoach Association, said the industry would welcome federal standards on seat belts, but the industry wants to follow the government's lead before independently adding them to ensure it is complying with accepted standards.
"If there's a way to improve safety, we want it," he said.
But James Hall, who served as chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board from 1994 to 2001, worries that the talk won't translate into action. He said NTSB reports dating from at least 1971 urged the government to add seat belts to motorcoaches.
In 1999, Hall oversaw an NTSB report that said most motorcoach accident fatalities occur when passengers were thrown from their seats or ejected from the vehicle. That report urged NHTSA to develop performance standards to better protect passengers within two years.
Instead, he said, NHTSA and lobbyists for the motorcoach industry dragged their heels. He said manufacturers have always had the option to include seat belts without the federal government's permission.
"I can't believe that 35 years after the government made the first recommendation that this issue is still being debated," he said.
