"Seatbelts for School Buses," Preface to 1996 Edition

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[Return to Home Page ] [Title Page ] [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 D. Testimonials ] [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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PREFACE TO 1996 EDITION

Tim called. Justin had said that there were no seatbelts on his school bus! Could Tim have a copy of my primer? I mailed him one that day, glad that somebody cared.

But that was a day in the Fall of 1995, and my "Primer" was completed in February 1990! Maybe I should have sent it to Ralph Nader after all!! Or, maybe I should nowadays take advantage of advances in communications technology ... Please see my 30 August 1996 letter to Ralph Nader.

This electronically-formatted "7 September 1996, Version 3.06" is taken directly from the 13 February 1990 "Version 1.3," which was produced in such a small quantity as perhaps to make it a publication rarity, if not exactly a rare edition (it was never formally published). The reason for this new edition is to make the work widely available on the World Wide Web, because I am still hearing about children who, after their first day at school, tell their parents with some dismay that their school buses have no seatbelts!

If schools have no respect for something so important that their parents have stressed, what else that their parents have said should be mistrusted?! (Remember, at this age kids still believe in Santa Claus!) Is this not too often the first wedge driven between parents and their children by school systems, in what is supposed to be a partnership between parents and school systems in raising our youngsters?

This is almost entirely based upon an non-copyrighted, 1986, 3rd Edition of The National Coalition for Seat Belts on School Buses "yellow handbook." I thank Nancy Bauder, current President of NCSSB, for permission to share this work on the Web.

Recently, NCSSB has "been absorbed" by the

Pupil Transportation Safety Institute

443 South Warren Street

Syracuse, New York, 13202

Voice: 1.800.836.2210

FAX  :   315.475.5033

PTSI is a non-profit (501c3) educational organization " ... whose aim is to bring together all the participants in the school transportation community to work towards a common goal of safety and efficiency." When they have a Web presence, I shall provide a link to it with great pleasure.

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©Stephen A. Langford, Oro Valley, Arizona, 7 September 1996

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I also thank Roger Beck, President, and the other people at [alias TheRiver], The River Internet Access Company, Tucson, Arizona, U.S.A. Roger has encouraged me to complete this Internet project, and the Board of TheRiver has provided the system resources to make it all possible.

Others at "TheRiver" have helped me over the sometimes difficult hurdles encountered while learning to use the Internet -- a continuing process, I must add. In particular, I am pleased to mention the help of Marcus Needham, David Mercer, and Eugene Bergeman. Eugene has a [spiffy page] for his consulting business and has been extremely gracious about my stealing some graphics from it (including the [ Home-Page 3D WELCOME message ]).

Although I have not yet made much use of my [InContext® Spider HTML editor ], I have used or intend to use some graphics from that package, as well as some from the [Microsoft® Site Builder Network] and the Netscape® Gold Rush Tool Chest]. I also occasionally grab nice images from other people's sites. However, if I accidentally display any image taken from any proprietary source, I hereby apologize in advance for that infraction and request notification of any such instances. As it is virtually impossible to keep track of the source of each image in my image library, I hope that these acknowledgments and explanations "cover the bases," but I will welcome any corrections or guidance that may come my way in these regards.

I thank my wife, Joann K. Nakagawa, as well as several of the people at the company (anonymous by request) that she works for, without whose help this work would not have been completed.

Little of the 1990 text is changed, here, except that -- because the loose organization called "Coalition for Child Safety" had its last meeting in 1989 or 1990 -- that name has been removed from the title page. An effort has been made to put page breaks approximately where they were in the 1990 edition, to facilitate cross-referencing during my own work, but because the text has been changed from double-column to single-column format and fonts are different, page numbers have nonetheless perforce been changed a bit.

The 1990 edition of this document was prepared in Ventura Publishing® (Xerox®). Some tricky editing brought the previous work into Word for Windows® (Microsoft®), from which it was translated into HTML by an evaluation version of HTML Transit.

I have benefited greatly from the patient tutelage of several, brilliant colleagues and fellow Members of [Kidlink], especially regarding my first stumblings with HTML (HyperText Markup Language). I thank each of them (especially Clay, Clayton, Mike and Aaron) for their continuing patience, friendly attitudes, and helpful suggestions.

Incidentally, readers interested in Kidlink (which provides a safe place for kids in the 10 - 15 age group to chat over the Internet with others from about 85 nations) will certainly enjoy Kidlink Member Patti Weeg's [ report on August 1996 Kidlink Rio de Janeiro Conference].

Perhaps more needs to be said about the various paginations of this document: Many paragraphs start off with page numbers that have nothing at all to do with this document, but which refer to page numbers in the NCSSB "Yellow Book", as stated in the FOREWORD. Please do not let this cross-referencing bother you.

Two other pagination schemes are in effect, as well. One simply presents a page count, irrespective of which section of the document one reads. Another paginates with the Title page as "i" and uses small Roman numerals until the MAIN BODY of the paper begins, where Arabic numerals begin and continue to the end of the document.

Readers may sigh in relief that I have chosen to avoid also numbering pages as to how far one has read into a given section. So, for instance, you will find no easy way to go from page E-5 (for page 5 of Appendix E) in the 1990 version to the corresponding page in the present version - unless, of course, you choose to use the hopefully useful (and still unfinished) INDEX.

The [INDEX] of this documents provides about 1300 hot links to particular paragraphs in particular HTML files at this site. Ensuring that each link actually goes to the intended paragraph on the intended page is a job that remains to be done. I hope that readers will be somewhat forgiving, unless they would like to help with that job - in which case they can complain as loudly as they like. Even so, I shall be very grateful for any and all corrections ... even those pertaining to the INDEX.

Blame me, alone, for all remaining mistakes in this document. If you point them out, I'll have a better chance of fixing them. All constructive criticisms, which point out room for improvement as well as suggesting specific changes, will always be welcome.

Thank you for reading this and for caring enough about children to do what you can to make sure that they travel as safely as possible while on school buses. Please feel free to share this document by linking to it, suggesting that other people link to it, copying it and sharing it in its entirety, or downloading the 105,591-Byte, ASCII [SEATBELT.ZIP] file that represents the 1990 effort with the fewest-possible changes from its original form and that can be formatted to your own liking.

You can read some responses to this site and decide how you can help, if you like.

Steve Langford

19 May 1996

[s@TheRiver.com ]

Tel. 520.297.0448

9140 N. Shadow Mt. Dr.

Oro Valley, Greater TUCSON

Arizona AZ 85737, U.S.A.

©Stephen A. Langford, Oro Valley, Arizona, 22 November 1996, 20 May 2002.

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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(Metering for this page begun 3 September 1996.)