California Church Bus Crash Highlights Need For Seat Belts On All Buses

California Church Bus Crash Highlights Need For Seat Belts On All Buses

A fatal church bus crash that recently occurred on a height road near Lake Gregory in California highlights for many parents, safety advocates, and injury lawyers the need for seat belts on all buses. Last February, a bus carrying 21 unpracticed members of a Pasadena church faction collided with an SUV, the impact sending it 25 feet down a snowy earthwork and into a 50 - foot cedar, crushing its cab. The driver of the bus was killed and all of the passengers were injured, some critically. None of them had been wearing seat belts. The bus was not expert with them, according to the California Highway Patrol.
While the national sway does not require school buses weighing over 10, 000 pounds to be outfitted with seat belts, California does, however, only on newer models: all school buses manufactured on and after July 1, 2005 capable of carrying more that 16 passengers, as well as all school buses manufactured on and after July 1, 2004, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles. Buses weighing less than 10, 000 pounds fall under governmental regulations and are required to have seat belts.
Such laws, unfortunately, do not balance for older, mammoth buses like the one used by the church combine. Although the media has only indicated that the bus lacked seat belts, photographs of the accident suggest that it was manufactured long before 2004. Not retrofitting vehicles—or requiring them to be retrofitted—has been one area where vehicle occupant legislation has failed. Last summer, a child died after being ejected from her father’s 1956 Volkswagen Beetle during a collision. The Project, much like the church bus, was exempt from seat belt laws.
Why haven’t state seat belt regulations been adopted for all school buses, senile and new? The State Highway Transportation Safety Administration claims that “school buses are one of the safest forms of transportation in the United States, ” citing their design as the inauguration of their safety during crashes. The Administration asserts that as they are hefty they control crash forces differently than passenger cars, causing bus occupants to experience less of the impact from an accident than other vehicle occupants.
The Administration also claims that the occupant shelter provided by a safety mode called “compartmentalization” negates the need for seat belts on school buses. A key factor of compartmentalization is equipping buses with “strong, closely - spaced seats that have pipeline - suspicious seat backs. ”
" School buses may be safer than other vehicles, but accidents involving them still claim a powerful numeral of lives. In 2009, NHTSA reported that 118 people were killed and 13, 000 injured in school bus related crashes in 2009 ", according to Jim Ballidis a California injury lawyer. While California is one of the few states to mandate seat belts for school buses, the tragic accident that left 21 modern people injured in the mountains near Lake Gregory serves as an pointer that related legislation should be extended to older buses. Considering that seat belts reduce the risk of suffering fatal injuries during a crash by approximately 45 %, all vehicles should be good with them.