> "Even the smallest reduction in the number of bus riders could result in more children being killed or injured when using alternative forms of transportation," it said.<p>Fascinating, someone actually thinking rationally about safety.
> "six children die each year in bus accidents"<p>Those seem to be ridiculously good numbers and back up everything stated in this article. I would worry that making ANY changes could actually increase that number.
<i>"The child will go against the seat, and that will absorb most of the impact,"</i><p>It's remarkable how scientists, engineers and tech folk are able to abstract the description of a high-trauma event, especially for a young child's body and describe it in such matter-of-fact terms.<p>I note this here not only because it is striking to read but to also consider that we do this in our own work in the startup world. Often we will think of an act such as 'unfriending' someone as simply a manipulation and purge of row(s) in a database when, from the user's perspective, it may be a significant and deeply nuanced real-world event.<p>I think in both cases we could make better products if we articulated better and humanized events such as "going against the seat" or "unfriending".<p><i>(nb: I'm not comparing the impact of a mass body trauma to that of unfriending someone, fortunately for us there is very little if anything in startup world that has such real-world significant consequences)</i>
Six deaths a year? Add seatbelts and you'd have more deaths than that from communicable disease. Lets have all these kids put their hands on exactly the same surface.
Wow, thats an actually enlightening article from msn.com! I've been thinking in recent years about school bus seat belts and until now I hadn't understood why the state didn't require them. Now I feel a little better informed about the trade-offs.<p>I have a feeling that my thinking on the topic is tainted by the ever-present "Click it or ticket" billboards. This is something I feel despite having lived through the dawn of airbags, which were instituted in such a way to hype passive restraints. An example of that hype was that cars without airbags had to have automatic seat belts. Wouldn't that be just the ticket for those pesky non-seatbelt-wearing kids!<p>I wonder if in the future:<p>* adding seat belts will cause manufacturers/school districts to skimp on passive restraints<p>* the push to fuel efficiency will lead to lighter buses in the school district fleets, necessitating a move to seat belts anyway<p>Next up: why don't city buses have seat belts?
In a crash, "The child will go against the seat, and that will absorb most of the impact," said John Hamilton, transportation director for the Jackson County, Fla., school board.<p>How do you go against the seat when the bus flips over?
Alex Johnson must not have remembered the editors this Christmas.<p><i>…evidence is incomplete and uunconvincing, and they unconvincing, arguing that…</i>
This article makes me feel like I'm talking to someone who would say: "I don't wear seatbelts because I want to be thrown from the car in an accident".<p>It all comes down to money. If we put in seatbelts things will cost more and I'm not taking a pay cut.
On a side note, Anyone else surprised that installing seat belts would cost an additional 8000 - 12000 _per_ bus. That just sounds a lot of BS. $170 million per state. LOL.
There's a better reason for seatbelts on buses.<p>Keep those little frackers in their seats.<p>If everyone isn't buckled in, driver should stop the bus.<p>$15k to install seatbelts? What if they weren't made from gold (or the gold lining the pockets of the vendor).
I don't understand how anyone can believe it's <i>safer</i> to be unrestrained and free to bounce around the cabin in a crash.<p>It's definitely cheaper, though. And, maybe more importantly, banning kids who won't stay buckled up would be very unpopular.