West Brook father successfully campaigns to get school bus seat belt law enacted

[The Straight Story]

West Brook father successfully campaigns to get school bus seat belt law enacted

West Brook, Texas

At a funeral for two young women, Steve Forman "made a promise to two caskets" to learn why they died and to do what he could to keep it from happening to others.

On her way to a soccer tournament in March 2006, Forman's daughter's left arm was crushed when the team bus crashed and rolled.

His daughter didn't fare as poorly or as well as others.

The wreck killed sophomore Ashley Brown and senior Alicia Bonura, injuring many others and requiring at least two dozen surgeries and an amputation.

....

But as months stretched on after the accident, Forman found himself leading a successful effort to change state law and put seat belts in school buses.

On Friday, Gov. Rick Perry traveled to Beaumont and signed legislation requiring seat belts in all new buses purchased by school districts beginning Sept. 1, 2010, and on all school chartered buses the following year.

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18454860&BRD=2287&PAG=461&dept_id=512588&rfi=6

[pnwmom]

1. Great for him! I tried, but failed,

to get my school district and state to do something.

When my first child was in middle school, she complained that the kids were dangling into the aisles, because they were having to sit 3 in a seat.

I checked with the district and found out that the official state standard called for 3 middle school students to be sharing the majority of the seats (with only 2 students per seat in the remainder). These seats were 39 inches across -- meaning, 13 inches of width per student. How many middle school students do you know who are only about a foot wide? (My daughter was basically full grown by then.)

This is obviously the reason the pencil pushers don't want seat belts -- it would be obvious that they can only really fit two to a seat. I asked the state how the children can be safe without seat belts, and the answer was that the seats are based on the "egg carton" concept -- the back of the seat in front of you helps keep you protected. I asked how that can be, when the third child on the seat is hanging out into the aisle, not protected by anything.

They couldn't answer, and they wouldn't change anything either.

[SeattleGirl]

2. Good for him. I've always thought it was strange that buses don't

have seatbelts but cars, trucks, and airplanes do.

[elocs]

3. This is not a simple cut and dry matter. Old school buses were not designed for seat belts.

Unless there is a shoulder harness, the way that school bus seats are designed so closely together, in a front or rear end crash the kids would break their necks on the seat in front of them. Yes, if money were no object we would have all new, very safe school buses. We could also have personal cars where the people would be as perfectly safe as a NASCAR driver except nobody would be able to afford the vehicle. We all know that many school districts are poor and at up to $7000 a bus they could not afford to put seat belts on their buses when they cannot afford teachers and the ability to operate as they should to properly teach our children. Yes, it is a tragedy when children are killed in school bus accidents, but they are probably much safer on a school bus than in mom's car making the same trip.

To be honest, our society claims that our children are so valuable to us, but are they? Just look at the school situation. If our children are so important, then why aren't teachers highly paid and esteemed? Why are the taxpayers so tight fisted with the money they provide for schools? If we are entrusting our children to school bus drivers, why are they not better paid? Why do we value child care workers so little, who are really substitute parents for the children, by paying them so little? Why do we have millions of children who have no healthcare, children who are homeless or hungry? Do we really care for our children? Seat belts with shoulder harnesses are a good idea on new buses, but there are so very many, many things we should be doing for our children to keep them safe and make their lives better.