Thread: New Buses

Don't start me on 'Seat-Belted' school buses....

Over here it's been driven by the Safety Fashionistas more than common sense. Bottom line is, so many schools are demanding seat-belts, that there's no way you could afford to buy a new NON-belted bus.

Good case in point. At a certain private school, the parents of FOUR kids made lots of noise at a meeting, swaying the decision to 'enforce' s/belts onto the current bus contractor who carries around 50 to 80 kids per day.
The fact that FAR more kids regularly catch NON-seat-belted public transport.... was lost somewhere.

Depending on where you buy them from, triple-belted seats are about $20K EXTRA for a bus, and that's not all... the Little Darlings don't always treat the seats - or belts with as much care as we'd like. Think of replacing many if not most belts over a 15 year life cycle.

The elephant in the room, or bus aisle to be precise, is greater width of these seats and their grab-handles.... reducing the aisle space...and the increasing width of backsides... kids as well as Teachers / Aides / Adults.

To add insult to injury, most seat-belted seats have high(er) backs, again reducing free room. Then watch the fun as a 'vertically-challenged /volumetrically-enhanced', well-endowed female teacher tries to negotiate her way through...
Never mind how she'd assist the kids in an emergency evacuation, getting herself out would be the biggest problem !

I think the biggest challenge with seat belts in buses is getting the kids to wear them, particularly primary school students. Getting them to just sit in the seat is a challenge in itself. I have even had to stop the bus and refused to proceed because the little darlings were running up and down the aisle and swinging off the hand straps like monkeys, they did settle when they realised we were not going anywhere until order was restored. I mean who gets the blame if one of the little darlings hurts themselves.

High school students are a lot easier to deal with (mostly) as they are old enough to appreciate the dangers involved in not sitting down in a moving vehicle.

ps. It's funny watching the primary school terrors change into sweet little things when they get off the bus and are met by their parents.