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APPENDIX B. TRB SPECIAL REPORT 222, MAY 1989
First, the TRB Special Report 222 Report Summary is presented. That is followed by my own critique of that report.
I thank Naomi Kassabian (NKassabi@nas.edu; Reports and Editorial Services, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council) for providing a clean copy of the Special Report 222 Summary, for its being scanned for inclusion in this paper.
TRB SPECIAL REPORT 222, REPORT SUMMARY ITSELF
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CRITIQUE OF TRB SPECIAL REPORT 222
Coalition for Child Safety has no argument with any effort aimed at improving school-bus safety -- whether the children are inside or outside of the bus. We support addition of safety features outside of buses, in addition to those related to seatbelt installation. We wish others would show us the same courtesy.
The objectivity and credentials of the National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council are inarguable.
But, the same data presented in TRB Special Report 222 (TRBSR222) have lead even some of the members of the NRC study committee to offer an important dissenting opinion: p. 2 of TRBSR222: "Nevertheless, some members believe that a uniform occupant-restraint policy for all motor vehicles is important enough that states and local districts should be encouraged to equip school buses with seat belts."
It is sad that those members were unable to convince the other committee members to issue a federal mandate to that effect. Leaving the issue up to state and local school districts sits well with those who would argue for "States' Rights." But it delays implementation of a nationwide policy that could be saving lives and preventing needless injuries.
On p. 2 of TRBSR222, the bugaboo, red-herring argument of cost effectiveness is presented. It is a bugaboo and red-herring argument simply because 1) most people do not go to the trouble of doing some simple math and 2) most people are afraid to look at or think about spending $40,000,000 per year (p. 2, TRBSR222) to implement and maintain a nationwide seatbelt program.
But there are 25,000,000 children being transported to and from school, every day, in the U.S. (p. 2, TRBSR222). Dividing $40,000,000 by 25,000,000 children yields $1.60 per year per child! Even that number is too high, since the same buses are used every morning and evening for multiple runs. Cost per year per child is probably something more like $1.00 per year!! How can anybody become distracted by cost-effectiveness arguments, when such minimal cost estimates are contained right there on TRB Special Report 222's p. 2??
I have asked other parents if they would be willing to donate even as much as $12 - $15 per semester, until their district had installed seatbelts in all of buses. [Yes, I recall we don't really want to do that, for "pre-1977" buses, but ... ] Enough people responded positively, that an escrow fund to that end might well be a realistic idea, I believe.
On the other hand, at least in the Amphi School District, we are told that funds are available, and that cost simply is not the issue (Dr. Don Scott, Associate Superintendent, Amphi, at Seatbelt Forum, Sunshine School, 24 January 1990). So the escrow-fund idea may not be useful to getting seatbelts on Amphi school buses, ASAP.
Indeed, at $1.00 per child per year, cost should be the issue in absolutely no school district in the U.S.!
There is an important inconsistency to be noted in TRBSR222, relating to how useful seatbelts in large school buses might be. In the inset box on the report's p. 2, the first bullet item says: "Seat (lap) belts, when properly used on post-1977, Type I school buses, may reduce the likelihood of death or injury to passengers involved in school bus crashes by up to 20 percent." But in the next bullet item, it says: "If all large Type I school buses operated in the United States were equipped with seat belts, one life might be saved and several dozen serious injuries [might be] avoided each year." But, two paragraphs just above the inset box, the report says "In a typical year, 10 children are killed while riding in large, Type I school buses. About 9,500 school bus passengers (children and some adults) are injured each year."
20% of 10 = 2, I think. Is it one or two lives a year that could be saved?
Furthermore, are the data complete and accurate, or do they omit data from field trips and other school-bus-related accidents which are not part of everyday school-bus runs (note Carol Fast's warning, in this regard, under the Index entry "Carol Fast: About 50% of accidents go unreported.")
A few years ago (3 - 6 [Now 9 - 12 -- S.L., May 1996] years ago?) the bus was on a field trip, somewhat to the South of Sacramento. While exiting an Interstate and on an "off-ramp," a tire blew. The bus fell, rolled, and landed 15 feet below -- on its roof. The unbelted passengers fell to the ceiling and were crushed by the seat tops, as the bus collapsed on top of them.
The rest of the story is that the small town of Yuba, California, lost a goodly part of its youth and its spirit, in that accident. When she recently asked what had become of the survivors, she was told that most are now either quadriplegics or paraplegics.
Of course, nobody knows whether the result would have been any better, had people been strapped in their seats, but my guess is that if they survived the initial head impact, they may have done better, in the overview.
No safety system can provide maximum protection for all accident scenarios.
But the point here is that reducing accidents to statistics tends to bureaucratize, to dehumanize, and
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to distance us from the subject. That is, indeed, what scientific objectivity is all about! It is also how people tended to rationalize their unethical medical experiments on POWs during WW II.
It is this dehumanized aspect of TRB's Special Report 222 that is the most troubling to me, and I believe it is why several CCS members have voiced such violent reactions to the easily bandied "cost-effectiveness" argument. Indeed, both the scientific and the economic approaches to so delicate a subject must eventually fail, simply because they so alienate those whom they seek to convince.
At least one other comment on TRBSR222 must be made. On the report's third page, the second bullet item reads: "Passengers who are not properly seated during a school bus crash may sustain unnecessary injuries and endanger others as they are thrown about inside the bus. The committee recommends that all states prohibit standees on school buses."
This passage seems to imply that people who are ejected from their "compartments" are to blame for not having been properly seated! Not only that, but it also suggests a rule without suggesting any method for its implementation! The obvious way to keep people seated and in their places during crashes is to restrain them with seat belts!!
If we are to infer that the way to keep people seated, in the absence of seatbelt availability, is to provide paid disciplinary monitors, then I suggest that seatbelts are cheaper. Seatbelts, coupled with drivers' acting as authority figures, is a combination that has proved effective, in several districts around the U.S.
TRB Special Report 222:
1) gives too little emphasis to the effect of seatbelts in reducing deaths and injuries,
2) dehumanizes the view of the school-bus seatbelt issue,
3) touches only lightly upon the value of providing children with an uninterrupted education about the critical need to use seatbelts in vehicles,
4) does not take time seriously to consider how school-bus seatbelt usage can free a driver from disciplinary problems so that full attention can be kept on the driving, and
5) presents self-contradictory and undeveloped statistics.
However, it also makes clear that children of ages 5 and 6 (or, 5 - 10, if you like) are at greatest risk. It is not clear whether those data pertain to all fatalities or, as the text (but not Figure 1's caption) suggests, are limited to deaths outside of buses.
In any case, I am not convinced by the TRBSR222 Report Summary that CCS should spend $20.00 to obtain the complete report. Perhaps that is something for school districts to do, if they like.
[Return to Home Page ] [Title Page ] [Preface to 1996 Edition ] [About the Author ] [Foreword to 1990 Edition ] [Table of Contents ] [Main Body ] [Appendix A. Compartmentalization ] [Appendix C. Endorsements ] [Appendix D. Testimonials ] [Appendix E. Studies and Recommendations ] [Appendix F. Legalities ] [Appendix G. Guidelines to Seatbelt Implementation] [INDEX ] [Responses To This Site ] [Related Sites ]
©Stephen A. Langford, Oro Valley, Arizona, 29 September 1996. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This document may be freely transmitted in its entirety, so long as no monies are earned during the transaction/s. Permission is required for any and all other pertinent circumstances. ------------------------------------- page break ------------------------------------- (Metering for this page begun 3 September 1996.)
