Lars Larson on Seatbelts for School Buses

I don’t think it’s time to start putting seatbelts in school buses.

I know that it sounds counterintuitive, but I’m not in favor of the Bush Administration’s latest overture for school bus safety. They want to expand the use of seatbelts in school buses.

I’ve often had people tell me that seatbelts ought to be put in school buses. The problem is, most of the bus drivers will tell you, it would be well nigh impossible to get the kids to actually wear them.

If you look at school bus safety you begin to understand why a school bus is 95 times as safe as a passenger car and about six times as safe as a scheduled airline. It’s because the bus is big and massive and the inside is padded and the kids generally don’t get hurt, even when the school bus gets into a serious accident.

So, I think this is going to be just a gigantic waste of time and money.