[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 B. TRB Special Report 222, May 1989 ] [Appendix C. Endorsements ] [Appendix E. Studies and Recommendations ] [Appendix F. Legalities ] [Appendix G. Guidelines to Seatbelt Implementation] [INDEX ] [Responses To This Site ] [Related Sites ]

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APPENDIX D. TESTIMONIALS

ARDSLEY, NEW YORK, BUS-DRIVER'S TESTIMONIAL

p. 83: "I have been a school bus driver in Ardsley for nearly 25 years now and have always approved of the latest safety features that this district has put on the bus. In 1974 I testified at a public hearing on school bus safety to say that our district ordered one of the first buses made with 28 [inch] high back seats. I wanted the legislators to know that discipline had improved since we got the bus and that all the kids in the district were jealous of the one high backed seat bus. The reason they liked it so much was that the kids behind them weren't able to bother them now. They liked being left alone and having privacy.

"Today I would like to tell you about another safety feature that Ardsley is insisting on--the seat belt. This year I happen to be driving a van type bus, but the seat belts in it had not been used in the past. In the middle of November [1983--S.L.] I was told that the Board of Education's seat belt usage policy would now go into effect. I drive 15 children from Ardsley who go to a parochial school, in grades Kindergarten through eighth. I explained to the children that seat belts are for their own good. They had not had any lessons on seat belts in their school because they were out-of- district children, and we also have no monitor on this bus to tell them about belts. I had no problem at all getting them to use them. The older kids were terrific and the kindergartners only had trouble tightening them until I showed them how. Within a couple of days everyone used them without question. I tell them how important it will be to use them in their own cars and to get their parents and family to use them too. I think they understand and that the bus use will carry over to the car.

"Because of seat belts in the bus I no longer have any discipline problems. Nobody ever moves out of their seats and if they did, it would be easy to spot, even if it were a large bus, because they would be the only one standing up.

"I think there should be a law for seat belts in New York just like the 28 [inch] seat back became a law.

"Thanks for this chance to tell you about our seat belt program" (testimony of Bill Lamb, School Bus Driver and Custodian, Ardsley Free Union School District, before the Legislative Commission on Critical Transportation Choices 8 December 1983 Public Hearing).

ZANGA, JOSEPH R., M.D., TESTIMONIAL

p. 85: "I am Joseph R. Zanga, M.D., Director of the Child and Adolescent Emergency Unit at the Children's Medical Center of the Medical College of Virginia. I am also president of the Virginia Automotive Safety Alliance and a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. My appearance here today is on behalf of the Academy, a national and international organization of more than 25,000 pediatricians. Those pediatricians and that organization have, as their overriding concern, the health, well-being, and safety of children and youth.

"We are a cautious organization which studies issues in great detail before making public pronouncements. It was, therefore, with a great deal of confidence, based on more than 15 years of study, that in February, 1985, we issued a policy statement on school bus safety. During all those years we looked at school buses, their design and construction, school bus drivers, their qualifications and training, and children who are passengers on those vehicles. We studied accident reports and the investigations of individuals and organizations interested in school bus safety. We corresponded with school bus manufacturers, local, state and federal transportation safety agencies, consumer groups and the like. I come before you today to reinforce our February statement and tell you what we have learned.

"That school buses have an enviable safety record is difficult to dispute unless, of course, you are the parents of one of the 10 or so children killed [in school buses.--S.L.] each year. In Virginia alone, there are 100-200 children injured each year as passengers on buses involved in accidents. Because my emergency room is a trauma center, I have occasion every year to examine 30-40 children injured in relatively minor bus accidents. Not one of those injured children would have required my services had safety belts been in use on those vehicles. The experience of my colleagues in pediatrics around the country is very much the same....

"We have learned some other things as well. We've learned, for example, that buses manufactured in accordance with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard #222, are fully capable of safely supporting the use of seat belts. As noted in the 'Federal Register,' Volume 41, #19, January 28, 1976, page 4017, 'The strength characteristics of the seats specified by the standard...provide the strength necessary to absorb seat belt loads.' We learned from school bus manufacturers' testimony that several of them indicated, as early as 1980, a willingness to install safety belts in newly manufactured school buses if those belts were among the specifications in the order they received. The Wayne Company indicated that the seats used on their large buses are identical to those used in the small buses in which belts are required by law. Seat frames have pre-drilled holes to accommodate belt assemblies so that 'after market' installation of belts by school districts is easily accomplished. It is interesting to note that in the same 1980 review, two companies, Thomas and Bluebird, both indicated that the design on their seats is not lend itself to belt installation. For these companies, it would seem that retooling would be necessary should safety belts be required. Also please note that the Thomas Company is one of the industry leaders in opposition to safety belts.

"One of the most interesting things we learned is that there are actually people out there who actively

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oppose the use of safety belts on school buses. We do not understand that opposition. We have examined the same studies they have and have found different words in those studies than they have quoted. We, therefore, have drawn different conclusions. Even the most recent Canadian study about which I'm sure you will hear, indicated that in an unusually high speed (for a school bus--65 MPH) front end crash, 'even belted children appeared to fare okay.' The American Academy of Pediatrics maintains that had the test mimicked a more real-world event, at speeds more usually maintained by school buses with more life-like (non-stiff neck and spine) test dummies, and with instrumented child, rather than adult-size, dummies, there would have been a clear advantage shown for the safety of restrained subjects. Further, if our recommendation on increased seat back heights had been followed, the safety advantage of the restrained dummies would have been unquestionably demonstrated. The school bus industry, however, is touting this study as 'proving' the 'danger' inherent in the use of safety belts on school buses.

Even though a study limited to front-end crashes has some validity (so long as its results are not extrapolated to include all other crash conditions) it must be noted that the Canadian test involved only 6 crashes. Students of statistics learn that at least 8 tests should be done before a data set can be considered as statistically significant, and before one should venture to derive any statistical inferences from it. Of course, many more tests should be done under a greater variety of circumstances, to test the many variables which should have been tested in the Canadian test. Such rigorous testing seems to have been done by nobody, probably due to cost restraints. In any case, "educators" who tout the Canadian study do more to display their own ignorance of statistics and of proper testing procedures than they do to convince people who are intimately familiar with testing procedures and with the interpretations of experimental data, of their ill-advised opinions.

"Let's move away, though, from the issue of primary injury in school transportation to the broader issue of child safety. Among the things the members of the American Academy of Pediatrics know more about than school buses is school children. We, of course, spend our lives working with, studying and learning more about children. We have observed that children, particularly the young ones, are avid learners; but for those young ones, learning is concrete, not abstract. Children, unfortunately, can not rationalize the way we adults often do. For them, most issues have no shades of gray.

"It has taken 8 years, but fortunately in our country all 50 states in some way protect young motor vehicle passengers by mandating the use of safety seats or belts in private passenger automobiles. Many of our children are thus growing up with the habit of riding secured. That habit safely persists, enforced by law, until the first day of school where we literally and figuratively lose these children to an educational [educational?--S.L.] system that says it is proper to ride unsecured in a moving motor vehicle. Two trips a day, every weekday, for about 9 months of the year is a powerfully negative learning experience. Our older children, our teenagers and our young adults are killed in massive numbers each year because they have not learned the importance of using a safety belt for every motor vehicle excursion. [Does this not imply partial liability of schools and school personnel, where no seatbelts are provided on buses?--S.L.] The potential for powerfully reinforcing the education inherent in the child safety seat laws is also inherent in any federal or state legislative effort which would seek to encourage or mandate the use of safety belts on all of our school buses....

"We urge the Committee to request the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to initiate rulemaking or other programs to mandate seatbelts in schoolbuses. As individual members we ask that you vote in favor of measures such as that introduced by Representative [Peter H.] Kostmayer which would provide grants to states to adopt and enforce laws requiring the use of safety belts in school buses. (From Joseph R. Zanga, M.D., 1 May 1985, Testimony before the Subcommittee on Transportation Committee Appropriations, House of Representatives, on Mandatory Seat Belts in School Buses, pp. 84-8 of NCSSB manual.)

[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 B. TRB Special Report 222, May 1989 ] [Appendix C. Endorsements ] [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.

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