Three-point seat belt (Courtesy: Safeguard)

After reviewing the 132-page Texas Transportation Institute report on the “Implementation Plan for Equipping Texas School Buses with Lap/Shoulder Restraints,” my head was swimming with numbers, suggestions, and safety risks. However, I kept coming back to one section, the “Analysis of School Bus Crashes in Texas.”

The state law creating the School Bus Seat Belt Program in Texas dates back to a bus crash in 2006. A group of Beaumont high school girls on their way to a soccer match fell victim to a roll-over on a rainy road. Two teens died, and dozens of others suffered severe injuries. Their parents worked with lawmakers in the months to follow to create the seat belt program. The law required all new school buses purchased after Sept. 1, 2010, to have lap/shoulder (three-point) belts. The crash involving those girls had none.

While implemenation of that law was still up in the air just a day before that date, the TTI report detailed how the law should go into effect. When considered reimbursing school districts buying the proper buses (even though the Texas Education Agency had severely slashed the funding from $10 million to $3.6 million to meet the governor’s requested budget cuts), TTI took a deep look at bus crashes in the state.

From 1998 to 2008 (although crash data was not available for 2002), Crash Record Information System data showed the following Texas numbers:

• Fatal Crashes – 5
• Crashes with Incapacitating Injuries – 87
• Crashes with Non-incapacitating Injuries – 427
• Crashes with Possible Injuries – 1,716
• Crashes with Property Damage Only – 6,231
• TOTAL CRASHES – 8,466

Fatal crashes made up only 0.06% of that total. Crashes with injuries made up only 6.1%. The report goes on to point out the following important National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and CRIS points:

• Nationwide, there is an average of nine fatal crashes that result in an average of 11 school bus occupant deaths each year.
• Nationwide, school bus occupants 19 years of age and over represent 48 percent of the occupant fatalities.
• In Texas, school buses are involved in an average 846.6 crashes each year. Of crashes that occur, 73.6% are property damage only, 6.1% are confirmed injury crashes and about about 0.06% are fatal crashes.
• In Texas, the number of fatal and injured passengers exceeded the numbers of fatal and injured drivers over five times.

Seven counties in Texas accounted for 46 percent of the total serious school bus crashes in the 2007-2008 school year:

• Bexar
• Dallas
• Harris
• Hidalgo
• Montgomery
• Tarrant
• Travis

Those counties also made up 40% of the school bus miles traveled and carried about 48% of students transported during that same time period. The report states the following additional observations into likelihood of bus crashes in Texas:

• An occupants is about six times more likely to be involved in a passenger vehicle crash that in a school bus crash.
• Fatalities and injuries represent one tenth of 1% of all fatalities and serious injuries statewide in the last three years of avaialbe data (2006-2008).
• For that same period, more than 79% of the school bus injuries occurred from 6 to 9 a.m. and from 3 to 6 p.m. These are the prime moving hours in student transportation.
• Using the data from the same time period, it’s apparent that the majority of school bus injury crashes:
  • occur with equal frequency on US/SH/FM roads (42.7%) and on city streets (42.7%)
  • are multiple-vehicle crashes (86%) with vehicles going the same direction (48%)
  • involve injuries to passengers (83%) in larger numbers than drivers (17%)

From 2006-2008 CRIS data, school bus crash reports in Texas show the following injuries related to seat belts for both drivers and passengers:

• Wearing Lap Belts Only – 27
• Wearing Lap/Shoulder Belts – 99
• Not Wearing Seat Belts – 1,291
• No Restraint Available for Seat – 9
• Unknown – 79

In summary, the TTI report says: 1.) Even though belted, school bus drivers and other passengers can still suffer injuries; and 2.) the presence of restraints does not necessarily mean that they will be used – it is apparent from available data that seat belt use is not universal even when they are provided.

Watch Josh’s investigation into the seat belt program below: