Making the connection on school bus safety

I drove under that sign again on my way to work today. The electronic one straddling the 401 that warns:

Make the Connection
Seat Belts Save

And just like every other day for the past two weeks, I thought of 10-year-old John Pham. The Brampton boy died of a head injury last month when the school bus transporting his class on a field trip veered off a highway onto the median, hurtling him and many of his classmates out of their seats.

Following John's death, there was a brief surge of public outrage over the lack of seat belts in school buses. But that was so many news cycles ago. Conrad's finances, Virginia Tech and Afghanistan have replaced those headlines.

Similar questions about bus safety were raised three years ago when four-year-old Allyceea Ennis of Thunder Bay was strangled on the school bus taking her to daycare. A coroner's inquest couldn't determine whether it was the result of her clothing getting caught or the actions of another child. But the coroner called for trained adult bus monitors to supervise kindergarten buses and suggested safety restraints for children under 73 pounds. Neither of which have been imposed.

I'm no transportation expert, nor a physicist. But something about a law that forces everyone on the road to buckle up - except kids on buses - seems ludicrous. Any parent who has ever accompanied a bunch of eight-year-olds on a field trip to the zoo can tell you the way kids are ferried around on these old yellow barges (with shock absorbers that feel as if they're past their best-before dates) just doesn't feel safe.

The decibel count alone is enough to provoke a Tylenol 3 headache, so how drivers are supposed to concentrate is anybody's guess. And the most common refrain heard from adults is generally along the lines of "get your bum on the seat!" and "Turn around! Turn around! Face the front!" Which tells you all you need to know about how effective a cushion the padding on the seat in front will actually be if the bus stops suddenly. And imagine the scene among kids bused to school daily - without adults there to remind them every 10 seconds not to bounce on the seats or spin around or steal each other's baseball caps.

Transport Canada says lap belts can do more harm than good. There's also the question of whether kids will put them on properly. And some experts warn they could trap kids in the event of a bus evacuation. The National Coalition for School Bus Safety in the U.S. counters that the transportation companies just don't want to face the high costs of installing belts.

Yet in California, seats are now equipped with mandatory three-point shoulder belts. According to this Star story, the American Academy of Pediatrics support three-point belts. So does the American Medical Association, the injury prevention centre of the Winnipeg Children's Hospital and other medical groups.

We shouldn't let this issue fall by the wayside again in Canada. We need to explore all the options. Because it makes no sense to advise everyone else on the road to "make the connection" while leaving scores of school kids vulnerable.

As Suzanne Tylko, chief of crash-worthiness research at Transport Canada, said: "As long as there are children being injured, we have work to do."

Do you worry about the safety of school buses?

Comments

[Jamie Wilson-Hull]

I have long been an advocate of having seatbelts in school buses. One need only go on one school trip to see exactly what it is that you're talking about in this blog entry, Andrea. Actually, one need only stand on the sidewalk as a school bus passes them delivering their little charges to their home areas each day to see the total and complete chaos that ensues on these buses!

Children are standing up, kneeling on seats, hanging out windows and just about every other conceivable child-like antic they can pull. There are very few children properly seated in a bus to begin with and how does a bus driver stop this while attempting to drive the bus properly at the same time? We all know that shouts of "sit down" doesn't even dent the decibel factor one iota.

Forget anything serious happening, one quick stop and half of these children would be considered human canon balls or projectiles, being hurtled through the bus.

Now, I'm not quite sure how it can be said that seat belts would stop or hamper a quick evacuation from the bus. My sense tells me that should a very serious accident happen, these children would be far more unable to get themselves out of these buses due to severe injuries of being thrown about the bus at a time of impact. How easily can a child with a broken arm, or leg from being thrown about, get themselves out of the bus on their own? To me, this is completely backwards thinking.

A seatbelted child at the point of an impact would be far less likely to be seriously injured than a child who has been shot from one end or side of the bus to the other and thereby, able to get themselves out of the seatbelt and out of the bus in a more orderly fashion. Picture what we've all seen on the news clips where an entire bus load of children were thrown to the other side of the bus during a rollover. Bodies entangled with one another, children trapped on the bottom of a pile. Would someone please explain to me HOW this is "easier" for them to get themselves out of the bus than children who are strapped into seats and able to release themselves without other children on top of them? Logic tells me that the chances of getting out of a bus intact and quickly would be far greater by unbuckling a seat belt with minor bumps and bruises than to have to untangle oneself from a mass of more seriously injured children littering the aisles and seats or piled on top of one another.

I hope the "authorities" wake up and smell the coffee soon. I'm sure there will a number of parents who will now reconsider the idea of allowing their child to go on a field trip in the future. Sad because for the cost of retrofitting these buses with seatbelts, we could have better peace of mind for the safety of our children. Their lives and wellbeing cannot be put in terms of a bottom dollar line.

[Tonya]

This is hardly the first time tragedy has occurred due to children not having seat belts or adequate adult supervision on school buses. After reading this, I distinctly remember an incident that happened in Thunder Bay, Ontario on Feb. 12, 2004 where a 4 year old girl, Allyceea Ennis, somehow slipped off her seat and was found unconscious by the driver. That little girl also died because she didn't have a seat belt. Nor was there adequate adult supervision on the bus, which also could have helped save her.

This is the link to the coroner's report on this little girl's death.

http://ogov.newswire.ca/ontario/GPOE/2004/11/10/c1066.html?lmatch=&lang=_e.html

[friend]

I know that you care about the kids that ride these buses, and so do I. I see that you have a very good point and would like to try to put your mind at rest . I work as a transportation supervisor in Oklahoma. Buses are very carefully built to be very safe. I know that the inside of a school bus does not look like much but even without the seat belts those kids are safer than you in your family car. Please take the time to look at the FMVSSs for school buses. I think that you will see that good people have put their heart and souls into making sure that your kids are very safe.