Lynn ahead of curve on bus safety

LYNN – A recent proposal that would allow school districts to use federal highway safety funds to equip some older school buses with safer seats and seatbelts will not have an immediate effect on Lynn, as the district is already using buses with the most updated safety equipment.Earlier this week, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters proposed new rules that would allow districts to use the federal funds to update safety regulations on buses under 10,000 pounds of gross vehicle weight, which are primarily used to bus younger-aged and handicapped children.These buses are more prone to roll over because of their shape and large tires, and the new safety regulations would allow for the small, squirmy students to remain in place in the event of an accident.”Think of it like putting an egg in an egg carton,” Peters said.Federal law requires all newly manufactured small school buses to come equipped with seatbelts, but many districts cannot afford to purchase new buses and need to update older models with the safety equipment.In addition, Peters proposed raising the back of seats from 20 to 24 inches, and requiring some buses that feature only lap belts to add shoulder belts for additional safety.Lynn Transportation Director David Hegan said that smaller buses in the city have featured seatbelts for quite some time, and are subject to a rigorous list of safety guidelines.”All of our small buses have seatbelts. They have as long as I have been here, so at least nine years,” Hegan said. “There is an extensive list of safety requirements for our school buses, and seatbelts are on that list.”While traditional long school buses are not equipped with seat belts, Hegan said they are among the safest vehicles on the road right now, and there has not been discussion about adding seatbelts to those buses.In her proposal, however, Peters does suggest adding seatbelts to larger buses, but implied that decisions on that change would be made by state and local jurisdictions.The city puts the school bus contract out to bid every three years, and makes a decision based on price and safety issues listed in the regulations. While bus companies will occasionally speak with the transportation department about new safety features on the buses, state and federal regulations make for a typically uniform set of standards.If Peter’s proposal becomes a reality, all small buses in the country would be required to add seatbelts within three years, and would affect an estimated 474,000 buses.Additional changes could come to the shorter buses that are used in Lynn now, but should not affect the cost of transportation in the budget because the city puts the contract out to bid, and it would be up to the manufacturer to update its product.While the new safety regulations are an important step for communities that need school bus upgrades, studies show that school bus transportation is among the safest in the country at any age.In a recent study presented to congress in 2002, which Peters based many of the new proposed regulations on, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that children are eight times safer riding in a school bus than they are traveling with their own parents to and from school, athletics and field trips.As of 2007, the administration found that 600 school-aged children are killed each year riding in passenger cars to and from school, compared to just six riding on school buses. These numbers are very low considering the amount of deaths each year in traffic accidents, and even out to an average of .02 fatalities for every million vehicle miles traveled, compared to 1.5 fatalities per million vehicle miles traveled in passenger vehicles.