Smaller School Buses Must Have 3-Point Belts

WASHINGTON (AP) - Smaller school buses will have to be equipped with lap-and-shoulder seat belts for the first time and larger buses will have higher seatbacks under a government rule announced Wednesday.

The seat belts will only have to be installed in new buses weighing 5 tons or less, and the requirement will not take effect until 2011. These smaller school buses are already required to have lap belts, but not the safer, harness-style belts. There is no seat belt requirement for larger buses.

Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said she stopped short of requiring seat belts for larger buses because that could limit the number of children that can squeeze into seats, forcing some children to travel in ways that aren't as safe as school buses.

School districts sometimes expect as many as three younger children to share a bus seat, but if there are only two belts installed per seat then fewer children can ride the bus.

"We wanted to make sure that any measures we put forth don't needlessly limit the capacity of the buses and then force that school or that school district to have more children walking, riding with parents, biking, etcetera," Peters told The Associated Press in an interview.

Schools buy about 2,500 of the smaller school buses each year, the Transportation Department said. The buses seat about 16 to 20 students. Larger buses carry more than 50 students.

The new rule also includes a performance standard for seat belts on new, larger buses so that schools that want to voluntarily add belts will have guidance on what belts are best, Peters said. Providing a common standard may also lower the cost of adding belts, she said.

The Transportation Department estimates it will cost about $6.1 million a year to equip new, smaller buses with the three-point seat belts and higher seat backs, and $3.6 million a year to equip new, larger buses with higher seat backs.

The rule increases the required height of seatbacks on new buses to 24 inches, up from the current 20 inches. Higher seat backs will help keep taller, heavier children from being thrown over seats in a crash, Peters said. The rule will be phased in beginning in the fall of 2009 and become fully effective in 2011.

Peters said she decided to explore the question of school bus safety after four students were killed when their bus nose-dived off an interstate overpass in Hunstville, Ala., two years ago.

About 25 million children travel to school on 474,000 school buses, according to the Transportation Department. About six children a year are killed in school bus accidents, Peters said.

The rule gives schools the option of using federal highway safety funds to help pay for retrofitting buses with seat belts, in addition to other money already available through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Jonathan Adkins, a spokesman for the Governors Highway Safety Association, objected to the use of additional federal funds for seat belts on school buses.

"Federal highway safety money is very limited and using that money to install seat belts on school buses isn't supported by crash data," Adkins said. "School buses are already an incredibly safe mode of transportation. We are more concerned about the areas surrounding schools and bus stops. States should not be pressured on this issue."

By JOAN LOWY

Associated Press Writer

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)