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There are 8 states that require school buses to have seat belts:
"To date, only eight states – California, Florida, Louisiana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York and Texas – require seat belts on school buses."
Cost may be a factor. Per the article on a new school bus, seat belts add up to $10,000 per bus, but retrofitting older buses costs much more. It also states there are concerns that younger kids would not be able to get the seat belts unlocked and off quickly in an emergency such as a fire.
Boy if there was ever a message that traveling in a school bus is safe this would be it. Any other vehicle and those passengers could have been killed. As scary as that was, and I still don't understand why kids aren't required to wear seat belts (enforcement would be a challenge but even with half compliance it would be safer), I believe there were no serious injuries to the kids right?
There's an active thread on C-D about differences between transit and school buses and when the seat belt issue came up, some expressed the opinion that they're dangerous on school buses because kids can hit each other with them when they're unbuckled. I'm not convinced that's a worse problem than unrestrained children in accidents, but there must be good reasons for it (hopefully not the expense of outfitting buses with them).
I can't believe the car driver walked away from the crash, if he indeed was going 100 mph. Modern safety tech is impressive.
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