The paper, “School Bus Occupant Protection: A Consideration of the Issues for State Policy Makers,” was published on March 15 to address the shift of the seat belt “controversy” from the federal stage to local states and to assist state and local policymakers in understanding all the issue surrounding the school bus seat belt issue.
NSTA points out NHTSA’s position that purchasing new large buses equipped with seat belts could place an additional burden on school districts that are already “strapped” for cash in the current economy. The NSTA paper also uses a NHTSA claim that a seat-belt mandate could result in an increase of 10 to 19 student fatalities each year, based on an assumption that school districts might need to reduce routes or buses because of cost increases and, as a a result, more students might choose to drive themselves or otherwise find different ways to and from school.
