Buckle up!

That safety slogan so often cited by traffic safety experts doesnt apply to the biggest passenger vehicles on the road.

Theres no federal or Montana law that requires buses to have passenger seatbelts. No seatbelt law for the big yellow school buses, no law for the motorcoaches that carry travelers, including student athletes, between distant Montana cities. Both types of buses usually are safe, but when crashes occur, the results can be tragic.

Last month, Robert Lange, 56, and Fatimah Amatullah, 60, died after being ejected and pinned under a motorcoach en route to Missoula from Billings.

Everyone who stayed inside the bus was injured, but survived the crash.

Passenger accounts of the rollover indicate that people were injured as they were tossed about inside the bus and thrown against each other.

Basketball bus wreck

Last weekend, the Billings West High School girls basketball team bus ran off Interstate 94 on a late night return trip from Miles City. Fortunately, no one was killed, but there was serious injury. Having seatbelts available and buckled may well have prevented any injury.

In Billings, buses that transport School District 2 special education students are equipped with lap belts, but regular buses are not, according to Ron Messman, First Student location manager in Billings. First Student runs 85 school buses for SD2 plus one motorcoach.

Drivers of both motorcoaches and school buses are required by law to wear lap and shoulder belts, which are considered safer than lap belts only. Being belted in provides the best opportunity for the driver to maintain control of the bus in the event of a crash.

Calculating costs

There are so few deaths in school bus crashes that the money it would take to have seatbelts for students is better spent on other things, according to status quo advocates.

The biggest obstacle to school bus seatbelts has been cost. Seatbelts lower the passenger capacity of school buses - only two belts per seat. That raises costs if the school has been putting three kids in a seat because more buses would be needed.

Calculating the costs of bus seatbelts literally puts a price on lives.

The Helena school board last month decided that student safety is worth the money. The Helena district is calling for bids this month on a new bus contract, including three-point restraints (lap and shoulder belts) on all buses.

"School buses are really safe, one of the safest modes of transportation," Tom Kohn, Helena school transportation manager, told The Billings Gazette.

The safety features of big yellow buses include interior padding that helps reduce injuries in front and rear crashes when students are thrown from their seats. However, in a rollover, the compartmentalization isnt as protective.

"We felt it is in the best interest of our students to go with the best safety restraint available," Kohn said.

Seven contractors attended the districts pre-bid conference and Kohn expects to see competitive prices when bids are opened later this month. The seatbelt requirement may increase costs a bit, he said, but the Helena district already buses most students two per seat. State law allows schools to put three students in a seat.

Slow rule change

In remarks to the Bus Safety Council last June, Daniel Smith of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration noted that six motorcoach crashes in the first six months of 2011 had caused 25 occupant deaths and numerous injuries.

The first "high-priority action item" in the NHTSA safety plan is the installation of seatbelts on all new motorcoaches. Of the 97 occupant deaths in bus rollovers between 1999 and 2008, 76 were passengers ejected from the motorcoaches.

Although NHSTA started proposing seatbelts for all new motorcoaches in August 2010, the rule isnt yet final. Once it is finalized (probably later this year), the industry will have three more years to comply, according to Linda Tran, NHTSA spokeswoman.

Safety must be improved faster than that.

Fortunately, some motorcoach operators, including Greyhound, are already ordering new buses equipped with seatbelts. In Montana, the state Department of Transportation has long had a practice of requiring seatbelts on buses that it purchases for community transit systems.

Helena trustees have decided that their students deserve seatbelt protection next fall. Other Montana districts should follow their example.

Huntley tragedy

On April 21, 2008, Sarah Fark, 7, was killed when she was thrown from a Huntley school bus that collided with a pickup truck. Eight other children who remained in the bus were injured, but survived. One child on the bus escaped injury. Only the bus driver was wearing a seat belt.

That tragedy surely made many Montanans ask: Why dont school buses have seatbelts?

Sadly, nearly four years later, most school buses still dont. A proposal to require seatbelts on new school buses died in committee during the 2009 legislature.

According to a report in the Helena Independent Record, between 2004 and 2008, 100 school bus occupants were injured in 340 Montana school bus crashes. Little Sarah was the sole fatality.

Considering that tens of thousands of students are transported millions of miles each year in Montana, bus crashes are rare. Nevertheless, preventing one death and 100 injuries is worth the money to improve the safety of Montanas children.

Both school buses and motorcoaches should have lap and shoulder belts for their passengers protection.

Copyrighted 2012 by The Billings Gazette; reprinted with permission.