Seatbelts on School Buses: a Necessity or a Daily Threat to Our Students?

When you see so many incidents lately on the news regarding the students riding the bus, the lack of supervision, and sometimes the harmful acts being done to other students; you wonder why these things are happening. Or perhaps there was an accident involving a bus where a student was severely hurt. I am for seatbelts being on school buses for the simple fact that anything could happen on a bus even an accident and the students should be safe. The issue of seatbelts on a bus is not a huge controversial issue compared to other issues such as whether or not English should be the official language or abortion, but it is an important issue to be discussed and made a decision on.

Dana Maliepaard was a young girl who went to Glasgow High School and was involved in an unrestrained car accident. Dana’s mother, Christie Maliepaard, believes that it is necessary to share Dana’s story with others so that they may learn from it. Dana’s story is used to show teen drivers that it is not only expected, but necessary to wear a seat belt. By wearing a seat belt when driving a car or riding in one, you are able to not only save your own life, but the ones of the people who care about you.

Risk for trauma related to misuse of seat restraints and physical proximity to vehicle pathways.

To explain these differences in a greater detail we begin as follows; a small bus is categorized as a bus under 10,000lbs in weight, which are required by federal law to have seat belt systems on them due to the fact that they are closer in nature to the size of the average automobile and/or light trucks. The federal government requires a

Reason 2: If they don’t have seat belts on the buses they are gonna still stand up stick there heads out the window and the bus driver is going to get distracted by the kids and could get in a wreck.

School buses, for as long as anyone can remember, have had no seat belts and children, for the most part, have been fine and ultimately safe. People may think this is unsafe and it sort of is but if something were to happen and these children could not get out of their seats fast enough a lot of circumstances could go wrong. Children enjoy their first bus ride and they do not want to be bombarded with all of this controversy over whether or not it is safe; they just want to get to school and back home. That is all a school bus is really, a short ride to and from school. Seat belts should not be required for school buses because children most likely would not wear them anyway and that could cause more danger, children should have a say as to whether they wear a seatbelt or not, and seat belts can cause a restricting situation where students could not exit the bus quickly and safely.

According to NHTSA, 13,941 lives were saved by seat belts in 2015 while an additional 2,814 could have been saved if properly restrained (2017). One impact of seat belt usage is reducing the risk serious or fatal injuries by about half. The CDC reported in 2009, 53% of occupants killed in crashes in the U.S. were not wearing seat belts (2014). According to data collected in 2008 by NHTSA, seat belts have saved an estimated 225,000 lives (2009). The benefit of wearing a seat belt can help increase chances of surviving a crash with little or no

3 Explain: Seat belts can save you life but if they yank on you to hard it can hurt your ribs and stoamac and shoulders and stuff for yanking on you to hard.

Seat belts should be required on school buses for a lot of foreseen reasons. Seatbelts can make school buses so much safer in so many different ways. One reason why seat belts should be required on school buses is that it will save students' lives. According to an article released by the “Today” show “About 440,000 school buses carry 24 million kids each and every day during the school year, which can be dangerous if the bus gets in a crash. Undoubtedly, school buses should be required to have seat belts if 24 million kids ride school buses each day.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), “in 2015, seat belt use in passenger vehicles saved an estimated 13,941 lives” (1). The NHTSA goes on to say that almost 30 million Americans still don’t use seat belts on a daily basis. Since vehicle accidents are among the leading causes of death in the United States and even the world, the argument to improve seat belt technology has increased dramatically. Researchers are often more concerned with whether or not people are wearing their seat belts, not the effectiveness of them, until now, although both are incredibly important. Seat belt safety, which is directly related to seat belt technology, has been shown to be increasingly ineffective because of the high severity

For the people who use the excuse that "They are just going around the corner" should realize that 80% of traffic fatalities occur within a 25-mile radius of your home and at a speed of 40 miles an hour. Buckling up to drive around the block is probably the best time to do so. Everyone knows that car crashes can cause death; yet because people do not buckle up all the time thousands of people still die in traffic crashes yearly. Seatbelts can save your life in a crash and can reduce your risk of a serious injury. Seat belts keep drivers and passengers from being ejected through windows or doors. This is important because your chances of being killed are five times greater if you are thrown from the vehicle. Thousands of people who die in car crashes each year might still be alive today if they had only been wearing their seat belts.

Seatbelts is an excellent topic to write about for essay number two. I agree with you that seatbelts will drastically increase ones chances of surviving a car accident. One could argue though that seatbelts can also kill you in a car accident. While I myself know it to be true, that the odds of surviving while wearing a seatbelt compared to not are extremely high, not everyone knows that. A lot of people hear stories of freak cases in which people died wearing seatbelts, and use this as a reason not to wear a seatbelt. Statistically speaking, more people survive if they are wearing a seatbelt than if they are not. I know quite a few states have seatbelt laws in place such as the click it or ticket campaign, do you agree with this?

Imagine this, class gets out and it’s the end of summer session. You’re all excited, ready to finally relax after a long 8 weeks. A friend invites you to a party 15 minutes away from your house. You and your friend get in the car, but did not buckle your seatbelts and drove off. Your friend turns to you and says, “ Buckle your seatbelt.” You response, “ We’re only driving for a couple of blocks. Nothing is going to happen to us.” When suddenly a car driving on the opposite side of the street crushes into your car. The next thing you know you are in the hospital with server fractures. Meanwhile, your friend only has a few scratches. You were one of the few fortunate ones to survive a car accident without wearing a seatbelt. The seatbelt remains one of the most overlooked devices that can preserve lives. Wearing seat belts is essential to increase the survival rate in car accidents, however not everyone agrees with the importance of wearing a set belt. Three important aspects of wearing a seatbelt are help spread out any force from a collision,

When involved in a serious car accident, seat belts have proven to be effective in saving lives and preventing injury. When involved in a car accident, passengers in the car are subject to concussion, ejection, paralyzation, or even death. Seat belts strap a passenger into their seat in the car, this prevents ejection from the vehicle. “75% of people who are ejected from their vehicles die from impact or related injuries” (CDC). This incredibly high statistic proves the effectiveness of seatbelts holding you into the car and preventing death by ejection. In addition to this, the US Department of Transportation states that 88.5% of people used seat belts in 2016 (US Department of Transportation). This number is up 7% from 81.2% in 2006, meaning drivers and passengers alike are realizing the necessity of wearing a seatbelt. The increased use of seat belts is likely due to scare tactics used by law

Seatbelts are used so that the occupant is not thrown forward during a vehicle crash, as a result of inertia. Inertia is the tendency to stay in the same state of either moving, or not moving, and because of this, anything inside of a car when it crashes wants to continue to move forward. Seatbelts restrict the space for the occupant to move, keeping them in their place, and stopping them from moving forward. Seatbelts also spread the load exerted on the body to the areas that can handle the force, such as the chest and hips.