Kudos to the Janesville School District if seat belts are installed in school buses! I was hurt in one of the two bus accidents that occurred in Janesville in 1963 and 1964 on the way to Hillcrest Grade School. The first bus accident occurred under the viaduct on Cty. Hwy. 14 on the way to school in the morning. Lost teeth, broken jaws, broken arms and legs happened to classmates that December. The following year our school bus, again on the morning route to Hillcrest, in the winter, traveled through Riverside Park. We were traveling through the park past the Elk's Club and slid on the sheets of ice covering the road. We slid, hitting tree after tree. My face slammed against the bus window,breaking the window,and slapped the metal handbar and metal back of the seat in front of me. I had a concussion and a really banged up face. But again, others suffered broken limbs, jaws, lost teeth. We were bounced around like rag dolls from ceiling to floor. I believe if seat belts had been in the buses, we would have been better anchored in our seats and many of those injuries could have been prevented.

"Sixty-one years, Van Galder replied. And fewer than five serious injuries" Do the math. The chances of being seriously injured on a school bus is next to none. I hope the bus drivers are not held responsible for making sure all the kids wear seatbelts. If they are, it will probably result in more accidents because the driver constantly has to check instead of focusing on driving.

i highly doubt drivers would be personally liable for children not buckling up. i wonder what vangalder pays for insurance?... ouch!

Before anyone, parent, or school board, or teacher, can make a descision, they should drive a bus for at least a week. If bus drivers would be liable for any failure to buckle up, we will have a lot of nice pretty buses, with nice new buckles, and NO DRIVERS. You would have to be nuts to drive & take on this burden of responsibility.

no one wants to do the research or listen to people who have. The statistics listed in the post below are 100% correct.

Glock is right.

Contrary to what one comment says, the dangers of a bus catching on fire are much greater than children being injured in an another type of accident. An average of 26 students are killed in bus accidents each year. Of this number, 19 of them are not even on the bus - they are killed while getting on and off of the bus or in the vicinity of the bus. Of the remaining 7 students killed, 5 are in bus fires. It is more dangerous to ride a bike or walk to school than it is to ride a bus. Funds would be better spent on enforcement of existing traffic laws in the vicinity of all of our schools immediately before and after school.

gee, I guess the NTSB has been wrong all these years.

Maybe I am way out of line, but the arguments on how much seat belts will slow down the kids getting out in a fire or if submerged in water, don't hold much water to me. How often do those things happen? vs accidents with other vehicles and running off the road and overturning where kids are thrown about like ping pong balls. Why would we have to buckle up our kids in a van or personal vehicle then? I for one, think its about time. What do we really have to lose? Not trying is a cop out to me. Next generation seat belts that unlatch automatically if there is a fire or water levels hit a certain sensor on the bus. We have the technology to make the safest seat belt system in the world. Lets start with the kids on the buses...just my opinion.

How are you going to belt in 3 kids to one seat safely? I remember riding the bus every day and sitting 3 to a seat was difficult at best, most of the time one of us had to sit sideways with feet in the asile. I would tend to think seat belts would then be usless or do more harm than good in a accident if they are not postitioned properly.
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And as someone else stated they would probably be used by bullys and not to mention vandalised so that they won't work properly anyways and would just cost so much more for us the tax payers to replace.

Yes, Van Galder will purchase the busses to meet a contract, and guess what will happen to the cost of that contract?? This is not about the safety of kids, but about the reputation of one school board member who was not able to get this done when he was a member of the state legislature! And current bus design has since been greatly improved. Belt buckles are one more weapon for bullies on the bus to use against the others. I know--I used to have to ride a school bus every day.

tipi16, the Van Galder company will purchase the buses to service a contract under requirements set forth in the contract.
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School buses today are significantly safer than a generation ago due to a number of basic improvements, mostly involving preventing accidents in the first place -- the flashing white lights, the swing-out gates, and so forth. The seat belt question has been argued at the federal level for literally decades. The district is always free to exceed federal standards.

cjjs35: The buses are required to do a practice bus evacuation twice a school year. The Drivers and the Aides are well trained to handle a emergency.

It is safer on a bus than in a car or truck just because of the design. The fatal bus accident up north a few years ago was when the bus was rear ended by a Semi. If a bus is rear ended by a car or a pick-up the most damage would be to the car or pick-up.

About 10 years ago the bus that my neice was riding in was in a accident south of Evansville. The bus was being passed by a car when it hit another car head on. The bus driver swerved to miss the cars. It landed on it's side in a field. None of the chidren were hurt except being shaken up. The Driver got all the students off safe.

I really can't agree with glock myself. Look at it this way, the chances of a rollover or a traffic accident in general are far more likely to happen then a bus bursting into flames or plunging into a river or lake. We must understand that we cannot protect our children from every possible scenerio...but we can prevent injury from the more common ones. I believe seat belts in buses are a must and and should be treated the same as any automobile.

"The school board came to a consensus Tuesday that it makes more sense to buy new buses with seat belts when making scheduled replacements than to retrofit the current buses."

The school buses are not owned by the district they are owned and operated by VanGalder Bus (Coach USA). So is the district going to buy the buses or will VanGalder?

The only way that this will be effective is if they have a Bus Aide ride every bus. The district dosen't even have enough Bus Aides to cover the Special Ed Routes.

Sorry Glock I disagree with you. You can't honestly tell me that a child slaming into the seat in from of them or tumbling in a bus that is rolling over is safer than that same child in a bus that has seatbelts. There would have to be some sort of training for the drivers and students also. If a child can handle a seat belt in a car I think they can handle it on a schoold bus.

I agree with glock!

Sorry, I am a school bus driver of 14 years now and I feel seat belts on buses is dangerous. Studies show that people, especially small children panic in an emergency and have tested the response time of a person under stress to unbuckle a seat belt. It was not pretty. If a school bus is on fire or ends up submerged in water, children will die. And then all the parents will sue the bus company for not getting their children off the bus in time. The reason children are safe on a school bus is in the design of the seats. Its called compartmentalization. The seats act as a cushioned backstop during a collision. Do some research into how many children are killed in collisions on school busses, it is very, very, small compared to any other forms of transportation on the planet.
How are the drivers to enforce this? stop the bus constantly to check the belts? Is he/she supposed to get up at every stop to unbuckle kids. I think this $$ could be put to better use elsewhere.

This should have been a law as there is much more of a risk to get hurt or killed as to the space and size.

About time I thought it would have been done by all states yeas ago. Glad to see Janesville leading on this.