Why don't buses have seat belts?

Question

School buses and Greyhound buses don't have seat bekts yet we are required by law to wear a seat belt in our car-Why is that?

Answer 1

idk im glad they dont :D

Answer 2

it would take too long for kids to get buckled up.

they might make drivers check to make sure everyone is buckled up.

do you really think people would actually wear them??

Answer 3

my school bus has seat belts..but alls we do is whip each other with them XD

Answer 4

my school buses had seat belts!!!

Answer 5

money.

they're trying to fix that.  they should.

Answer 6

There are plenty of valid reasons, btu the biggest, is,

Money.

Kids wouldnt use them. after they spent the thousands of dollars putting them in. so theyd have to hire a Monitor for EVERY bus to make sure all the kids wear them. and that isnt practical, what with all the stops they make.

Answer 7

because they go slow and will never go fast enough to hit a car on impact that hard

Answer 8

Because when a vehicle is over a certain size, it is not required to have seat belts. Just like on a large boat (cruize line, ferrys...) you dont need to wear a life jacket. It just depends on the size of the vehicle.

Answer 9

Compartmentalization, a concept seen frequently on commercial airplanes, involves seating passengers in rows of padded seats with cushioned backs.

The belief is that during frontal or rear impact, the most common types of wrecks involving school buses, passengers would either be pushed back into their seats or thrown forward into the padded backs of the row ahead.

The use of seat belts might require stiffer seats, which would negate the theory of compartmentalization. It is also feared that some students would receive internal injuries from seat belts through a process called submarining, the tendency for a body to slide downwards during impact.

Seat belts on school buses may also hamper rescue or evacuation efforts, as adults or older students may have to spend precious minutes unbuckling young or disoriented passengers.

Unruly students could also use the heavy buckles as makeshift weapons, creating even more of a safety hazard.

There is also the argument that seat belts would only protect passengers of school buses during unusual events such as roll-overs or flips, not other possible accidents such as fires or submersion.

Considering the expense of retrofitting current school buses or replacing entire fleets with approved seat belt systems, the benefits of seat belt use do not currently outweigh the liabilities.

One problem many school systems face with the prospect of mandatory seat belt use on school buses is compliance.

The bus driver already has a significant amount of responsibility, so schools would have to hire additional monitors to ride on all the school buses. In light of sexual misconduct concerns, both male and female monitors would have to be hired in order to avoid any allegations of impropriety.

Besides the added expense of hiring qualified monitors, there would also be a question of liability if even one student removed his or her seat belt and became injured as a result.

Answer 10

School Buses:  Seat belts in school buses are a problem because they transport children of all ages and sizes.  1 size or type of seat belt designed for an adult is not going to work for a 6-year old and vice versa.  That's why people use car and booster seats in their personal vehicles.

Greyhounds - I would guess it's because statistically they don't get into many accidents, and if they do hit something (like a car or pickup/suv etc.,), the huge weight difference between the bus and the car makes the need for a seatbelt on the bus minimal.

Answer 11

I knew we couldn't get through a week without a bus seatbelt question.

Answer 12

there are many passanger getting on bus and getting off from the bus. it moves slow and will not have impack like car at the time of accident

Answer 13

School buses having a gross vehicle weight rating of more than 10,000 pounds are not required by federal law to have seat belts; those under 10,000 # DO have belts by federal law. Many states, including New York, California, and Florida, require them on all school buses. NHTSA is looking at over-the-road buses to see if belts would be beneficial.

As to WHY belts aren't required on large school buses, it involves the seat construction and spacing, referred to as compartmentalization. The result creates an invisible cocoon in which the passenger sits.

If you want to get bored out of your mind, Google (or Yahoo) 49 CFR 571.207, 208, 209, 210, and 222. These standards explain all of this.

Answer 14

Some motor coaches do have seatbelts in the first seat on each side but is very uncommon.

As to the school bus, I drive an 84 passenger "pusher" (rear-engine) school bus in Pensacola, Fla and my bus does have belts, 84 of them. I dont have a monitor on my bus so my only question is how am I, the only adult on the bus, supposed to make 84 kids wear a seat belt at the same time?

As far as i know, it cost around 9 thousand dollars for belts for my bus. Cost effective, I think not. Its a law created by people that have nothing else better to do with their time, have never driven a bus in their life, and probably couldnt drive one if they wanted to even if it was empty.

School buses are almost the safest vehicle on the road. Leave them alone. They didnt have belts for decades and if I could, Id cut every one of them out of my bus today.

Answer 15

they dont go fast to begin with

Answer 16

It is more dangerous and harder for rescue personnel to find, try to unbuckle so many passengers in a bus.  I know that sounds backwards but it is true.  Takes too much time