... did happen, just as I was writing an editorial on school bus safety improvements for the December issue of Safe Ride News. A fatal crash occurred in Texas that illustrates many of the benefits and conundrums of school bus standards and occupant restraints. The outcome was no "accident."
The facts (from KTXS News)
Scene: November 4, 2011, south of Abilene, Texas
Crash: single-vehicle end-over-end rollover; vehicle traveling65 mph in 70 mph zone
Vehicle: 24-passenger bus (not a school bus), 16 occupants
Restraints: seat belts were available for all, but only the driver was using a belt
Injuries: 1 death (Anabel Reid), 15 injuries including 4 critical; twelve occupants were ejected when fiberglass roof tore off
Lessons to learn:
• Use of school buses for student transport is required only for young people of high-school age or below. College and university students can be transported in any type of bus, no questions asked.• School bus-body strength standards (FMVSS 220 and 221) would not allow a flimsy fiberglass roof that could tear off in a crash, as happened here.
• State law in Texas does not require occupants in buses to wear available seat belts.
The message that seat belts are “not needed” in large school buses has been well learned. It very likely influenced these students to ignore the available belts, despite the fact that they were riding in a very different type of bus. This type of bus does not have the built-in protections of a school bus body (even one without seat belts). How ironic it is that the belts that could have prevented many/most/all of the ejections/injuries/deaths were present but left unused.
So now do we have to teach college students and others the differences between ordinary buses and school buses, so they will know to buckle up if they are NOT in a school bus? Better, I say, to get ALL buses up to the body strength of school buses as well as seat belts on buses of all types.
Deborah Davis Stewart
P.S. For a photo of the roof torn off the bus, see KTXS News, ACU Bus Crash: Driver Was Only One Wearing Seat Belt - Abilene News Story - KTXS Abilene
