Tennessee Adopts Seat Belts in School Buses Funding Program

FYI On November 21, 2016 in Chattanooga, TN* a school bus rolled over, killed six innocent children and injured more than 20. In reaction to this tragedy, the TN Governor recently included an amendment in the TN 2018-19 Budget for $3 million that creates the “School Bus Seat Restraint Grant Program”. These grant funds are paying for lap-shoulder (LS) seat belts in new replacement school buses purchased by volunteer TN school districts and private “contract” school bus providers that apply for the grant. This year 23 districts/charter schools received funding for LS seat belt installation in their new buses. The approach of installing seat belts in only new buses means that replacing the existing bus fleet that doesn't have seat belts, will take a number of years. As has happened in other states, including Ohio, TN is not expected to pass legislation requiring seat belts state-wide because of funding hurdles. However, the majority of TN school districts and school boards support seat belts and several have already added them to their new bus purchasing specifications.

The North Carolina Dept. of Public Instruction has conducted a similar pilot “LS seat belts in school bus” program (2016-2017) in which volunteer school districts received from the State, a new replacement school bus with LS seat belts. The school districts needed to commit to a “required use policy” by students and adjustments to other related policies, e.g. student/driver school bus training. Since this pilot program was successful, the State has now implemented a full program for volunteer school districts. As of the 2018-2019 school year, 233 fully-equipped buses in 13% of the school districts in North Carolina have met the state required commitments and the program is expected to continue in future years.

I’m actively seeking support for creating a pool of federal/state/private grant funds, e.g. $100,000, for a pilot LS seat belt installation program that ten volunteer Ohio school districts representing different categories of school districts, e.g. urban, rural and suburban, could access at ~$10,000 each. These funds would cover the additional cost of LS seat belt installation in one new replacement school bus as a trial like the pilot program planned by Avon Lake School District that is pending a final Board vote. Having additional funds helps school districts to initiate trails and thereby gain experience. As part of the proposed grant each district would be required to gather safety, behavioral and driver experience data for each LS seat belt equipped bus to be compared to data from control buses without belts within the same fleet for a “to be determined” period, e.g. one school year. After the trial results have been analyzed, each district could determine whether new replacement buses should have LS seat belts installed e.g. travel buses using highways. Thus far, no commitments for the above proposed grant program have been received.

* https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/SIR1802.pdf

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