New school bus safety standards announced

United States Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters announced today new federal proposed standards to make school buses safer by requiring higher seat backs and setting new seat belt standards for the nation’s 474,000 school buses. Secretary Peters, shown above, said in the announcement: “Our proposed rule would make children safer, put parents at ease and give communities a clearer picture of how to protect students. . . .”

Highlights from the DOT press release:

Beginning one year after the rule goes into effect, all new school buses would be equipped with 24-inch seat backs. This increase, up from the current 20 inches, will better protect child passengers by helping keep older kids and adults from being thrown over seats in a crash, hurting themselves and others, Secretary Peters said.

“Even the smallest changes can make a big difference,” said Administrator Nicole Nason of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). “The higher seat backs will help provide children with even greater protection in the event of a crash.”

The proposal also requires all new small buses, which are more prone to roll-over than full-size buses, to be equipped with three-point belts within three years of the new rule taking effect, replacing the current lap-belts-only requirement, Secretary Peters said.

Attorneys General issue call to address serious safety deficiencies

Meeting in Washington DC earlier this month, 27 state Attorneys General “issued a call to federal and state leaders to address serious deficiencies in federal and state laws and educational policies that leave students vulnerable to violence in their schools and on college campuses.” NAAG News.

Among 7 recommendations by the National Association of Attorneys General’s task force are these two that can be met in important ways by harnessing school administration and teacher mobile phones to increase safety and to provide information, coordination and rescue during emergencies:

• State legislators should mandate that all schools and colleges that receive state funding create, maintain, and update emergency management plans.
• Colleges should implement a multi-point, redundant communication system that leverages existing technology and provides information to as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

Although the second point only mentions colleges, K-12 schools can equally benefit from the safety methods it describes. Children are safer at school when adults who are in charge know where they are, have rapid access to their contact and health records, and are able to summon help immediately to emergency situations.