Buckle up, Kansas: It’s time to require seat belts on school buses

It happens any time students are hurt in a school bus crash — as more than two dozen Wichita children were in a rollover crash on the icy Kansas Turnpike on Thursday:

We remember that school buses, unlike most other vehicles on the road, aren’t equipped with seat belts.

And then we ask: Why not?

The answer almost always comes down to money.

Three years ago, following a school bus crash in Chattanooga, Tenn., that killed six people, a Kansas lawmaker proposed a bill that would have required school buses bought by districts after Jan. 1, 2018, to have seat belts. It would not have required existing buses to be retrofitted with safety belts.

The bill looked familiar back then, echoing ones introduced in 2004, 2006 and 2007. And it met a similar dead end after opposition from several school districts, including Wichita.

District officials said school buses are plenty safe the way they are. They said requiring seat belts would amount to an unfunded mandate, and would cost up to $2 million for large districts like Wichita. They said ensuring students were buckled in would distract bus drivers and slow down bus schedules.

It’s time for Kansas lawmakers to consider the issue again and use common sense: If we require children to be buckled up in other vehicles, why not the one they ride every day to and from school?

We acknowledge that statistically, school buses are among the safest vehicles on the road. Buses safely transport more than 25 million children to and from school each year — about half the K-12 population, including more than 16,000 in Wichita.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an average of 128 people a year died in school-bus related crashes between 2007 and 2016, but only 9% of the fatalities involved people riding on the buses. On average, six children die in school bus crashes each year, compared to about 2,000 who are killed in motor vehicle crashes annually.

But you can’t watch videos like one from a recent bus crash in Ohio, which shows students being tossed around during a rollover collision, and think safety belts aren’t worth the investment.

In 2018 the National Transportation Safety Board recommended that all new school buses be equipped with lap and shoulder seat belts. The recommendation got people talking, but so far only six states — California, Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York and Texas — require seat belts on school buses.

An official with First Student, the Cincinnati-based private company that provides bus service for Wichita schools, confirmed Friday that the bus involved in Thursday’s crash on the Kansas Turnpike did not have passenger seat belts. (Drivers wear safety belts.)

“It is a local decision,” Jen Biddinger, the First Student spokeswoman, said in an email. “If a school district or state legislators decide they want seat belts, we’ll work with the district and our industry partners to make it happen.”

It’s time to make it happen and protect Kansas kids.