NHTSA Denies School Bus Seatbelt Petition « Houston Accident Attorney | Texas Personal Injury Lawyer Houston

NHTSA Denies School Bus Seatbelt Petition

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has denied a petition by safety groups calling for a federal mandate for seatbelts in all school buses. The agency believes that there isn’t enough evidence pointing to additional benefits from mandating seatbelts.

The petition by Washington-based Center for Auto Safety and at least twenty-one other groups called on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to mandate seatbelts on school buses. The petition insisted that seatbelts are necessary in order to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries that occur in school bus-related accidents every year.

In support of its petition, the groups drew attention to the fact that the National Transportation Safety Board had recommended seat belts on all school buses as far back as 1999. The groups also presented the results of studies that have indicated that students are much safer when they are safely buckled in school buses, than when they are not. The groups compared the results of a bus accident in Florida in 2008 in which the bus was equipped with seat belts. In that accident, one child suffered serious injuries. However, the results of another school bus accident in 1996 involving a bus that did not have seat belts, were not as encouraging. Several students were injured when they were ejected from the bus.

However, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has not been moved by these arguments. The agency believes that it would be too expensive to install seatbelts on all school buses, and that it has no reason to believe that any safety benefits from installing seat belts would be worth this additional cost.

Vuk Vujasinovic is a Houston bus accident lawyer, helping injured victims of bus accidents across Houston and Texas gain compensation for their injuries.