The tragedy on a New Jersey highway in May involving a school bus and a dump truck horrified the nation while also raising familiar questions about school bus safety. The impact ripped the body of the bus off its chassis, killing two people and injuring most of the 45 passengers on board. By one witness’s account, “A lot of people were screaming, and they were, like, hanging by their seat belts.”
The sobering image of terrified children suspended by seat belts begs an important question – might the number of fatalities have been higher if New Jersey did not mandate seat belts on school buses?
Currently, eight states have a school bus seat belt law — New Jersey, California, Florida, Louisiana, New York, Texas, Nevada and Arkansas. Although similar legislation has been introduced in other states, opponents of such proposals argue statistics on school bus safety show that, even without seat belts, students are safer taking the bus than driving to school with their parents.
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