Summary Report: Alabama School Bus Seat Belt Pilot Project

The University of Alabama (UA) conducted a three-year project for the Governor’s Study Group on School Bus Seat Belts and the Alabama State Department of Education. The project explored the implementation of lap/shoulder belts on newly purchased large school buses. It included topics like the rate of seat belt use, the effects on bus discipline, the attitudes of stakeholders, the loss of capacity attributable to seat belts, the cost effectiveness of the belts, and other pertinent issues. A list of some of the most pertinent study findings follows: • In 2009-10 in Alabama, 7,341 route school buses averaged 51 pupils each and traveled 457,258 miles daily (82.3 million miles annually). • Pupil deaths inside school buses are rare in Alabama. Since 1977, when major advancements were made to school bus safety, there have been only five fatalities for pupils riding inside school buses at the time the crash occurred. • School buses are the safest form of transportation to school. Students are six to eight times safer riding to school in a school bus than riding to school in their parents’ cars. • Nationally, up to three times more school bus-related pupil deaths take place outside the bus (loading/unloading) than inside the bus. • The addition of seat belts would make already-safe school buses even safer. • Stakeholders (parents, children, drivers, aides, and transportation supervisors) believe school buses are already safe and adding seat belts will make them safer. • School bus drivers cannot see pupils as well in buses equipped with seat belts due to the taller seatbacks required for seat belts. They are concerned this will lead to increased discipline problems, for which they may be held responsible. • Based on 170,000 observations of pupils in pilot-project buses, this project established an average seat belt-use rate of 61.5%. • Adding seat belts increases the thickness of seatbacks, leading to fewer rows of seats. Also, the fixed spacing between seat belt buckle latches negates the option of placing three small pupils or two large pupils on a seat, leading to the loss of one seat per row. • This study found thicker seatbacks and fixed buckle spacing could cause capacity losses of 5% to 18%, depending on the configuration of seats and rows. The bus fleet would need to expand 5% to 18% to offset the capacity loss. • A cost-effectiveness study was performed using the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration methodology. Two metrics were calculated: o The cost of an “equivalent life saved” from seat belt implementation in Alabama is $32 million to $38 million. o The “net benefits” for seat belt implementation over one fleet life cycle are -$104 million to - $125 million. The net benefits are negative because the costs exceed the benefits. This suggests using more cost-effective safety measures rather than implementing seat belts across the large-school bus fleet. Most school bus pupil fatalities occur outside buses in or near loading zones. If funding is to be spent on school bus safety, it appears more lives could be saved by investing in enhanced safety measures in loading/unloading zones. These treatments are likely more cost effective than seat belts, and this report includes several examples. Three pilot-project initiatives contributed significant new knowledge to the topic of seat belts on school buses: seat belt use rates, the impact of seat belts on school bus capacity, and the cost effectiveness of various seat belt configurations.