Editorial

School Bus Seat Belts Long Overdue

We fail to see the logic in requiring automobile drivers and their passengers, including children, to use seat belts whenever a car is in motion, while at the same time this safety device is not mandated for children riding on school buses.

Under a law passed last year, to prevent injury children are prohibited from standing on school buses. However, the state legislature after demanding children be seated didn’t take the extra precaution of requiring them to wear seat belts.

However, one element of the legislature, the Republicans, who constitute the majority in the state senate, are focusing attention on mandating the use of seat belts on school buses throughout the state.

The action is part of a comprehensive 13-bill package the senate GOP introduced in February aimed at improving school bus safety and protecting children from abandonment and injury in school buses.

Speaking in favor of the bills, state Senator Serphin Maltese (R-C, Middle Village) put the problems concerning buses transporting children in their proper perspective.

Maltese stated: "There are 50,000 school buses carrying more than two million children on New York’s highways every school day and getting them to school and back home safely at the end of the day is one of the fundamental responsibilities of our educational system.

"This legislative package, combined with the efforts of our Task Force on School Bus Safety, will move us further down the road to improved safety for our children, which must be our ultimate goal."

The Gazette heartily agrees.

The proposed bill dealing with seat belt use calls for a study on whether such use should be mandatory. With this the Gazette disagrees.

We feel that the long period of mandatory use and the study that preceded the passage of the law requiring seat belt use is ample proof that seat belts are a major safety device. This is clearly evidenced by the thousands of injuries and deaths that are prevented every day by seat belt use. To us long experience with the positive results of seat belt use is per se all the data the Task Force need look at.

Be that as it may, the pending bill requires Governor George Pataki’s Traffic Safety Committee to conduct a study under which some children will wear seat belts and some will not. The results will be compared and, based on the data derived, the panel will make a recommendation to the governor and legislature by Dec. 1.

There’s little chance that a seat belt bill for school buses will be enacted this year. Given the slow pace that the legislature works at and the huge agenda covered each session, there’s no telling when a bill mandating seat belt use will be considered and passed.

The Gazette urges the senate Republicans to reconsider their approach to this legislation. Maltese puts his finger on the need for greater urgency in dealing with the issue when he points out that the safety of more than two million children is at stake every day of the school year, twice a day, many times in snow and rain.

The Gazette would add another reason to mandate seat belts for the student passengers—dollar savings that would accrue to the city and state by decreasing the number of accidents which result in damage suits brought by parents.

Indeed, an examination of the other bills in the 13-bill package would seem to support the Gazette’s recommendation for all possible speed in enacting mandatory seat belt use.

In the package are five bills with the same purpose—to improve bus driver performance by removing those abusing drugs or alcohol and upgrading performance. These bills demonstrate another urgent reason to mandate seat belt use—problem drivers.

There’s another bill in the package which the Gazette strongly recommends for passage, one requiring drivers to check for stranded students. We don’t know whether this happens very frequently, but we do know from periodic reports in the media how such occurrences can place a child in jeopardy and his or her parents under emotional stress.

The bill would require drivers to follow a standard procedure to ascertain that there are no children on the bus before the driver leaves the vehicle, at which time he or she would activate a "NO ONE ON BOARD" sign.

Other than the exceptions we’ve noted, the Gazette endorses the other bills in the package. The sponsorship of the Senate majority assures the bill will be passed in that house. We urge the Assembly to follow suit.