Houston bus union pushes new seat belt laws after deadly crash

[Omaha Steve]

Source: 13 news

As the memorial grows for four students involved in a deadly school bus crash in Houston, the bus union is calling for stringent new seat belt laws in Texas.

The Houston Educational Support Personnel Union held a press conference this morning to call for seat belts in all Texas school buses after two students were killed and two were injured Tuesday morning when their bus plunged off the 610 Loop at Telephone Rd.

Louisa Pacheco, the bus driver at the center of that deadly accident, said it was a miracle she survived the crash and credits her safety belt in protecting her as the bus hurdled to the feeder road below.

RELATED: HISD bus driver opens up about deadly crash: http://abc13.com/news/hisd-bus-driver-opens-up-about-deadly-crash/988250/

Video at link.

The bus union said the children they transport are their most precious cargo, and their safety is a priority.

Read more: http://abc13.com/news/houston-bus-union-pushes-new-seat-belt-laws-after-deadly-crash/988745/

[Ex Lurker]

1. I don't see how you could practically enforce this

without an adult attendant on the bus, which is cost prohibitive in a lost of districts.. Especially with small children. It would be a nightmare getting them in and out and buckled up properly without someone helping.

[sarge43]

3. Exactly

Further, how would the driver ensure they stay buckled up? I drove a school bus for 10 years. The little squibs will see if they get away with anything.

[Igel]

5. You can't.

But it can make the ideological enemy look good and make the bus drivers (' union) look good. PR.

Let's not also forget that the drivers' union's first job is protecting their members. If it looks like suits are lined up against the driver, then this provides a target with far deeper pockets. Even if it's nonsense, it provides a co-defendant with deep(er) pockets to help fund the defense and pay any penalty.

Complaints have also been made against TexDOT that the streets aren't absolutely safe against any extreme situation. Why did the guardrail fail? Was it defective? Was it high enough? Well, it was inspected last year and they're not intended to keep the largest vehicles on the road if they're moving at steep angles wrt the guardrails.

Then there's an ethnic dimension: In a community that feels embattled, to have two of its young killed is taken to be more than a random event. Humans dislike random events. If something bad happens, it has to be intentional, there has to be some sort of volitional agency involved that helped produce it. If it's not clearly intentional, then there has to be a pattern of negligence that amounts to intent.

The person most at fault, the idjit that the driver who swerved and hit the bus was trying to avoid, is completely uninvolved. Bad, risky driving is a cult in Houston, and to blame the crappy driving that people not just find normal but grand and glorious would be inappropriate. Easier to find the nearest possible cause, especially when politics, power, and $ are involved.

[TexasBushwhacker]

12. The guardrail was 40 years old

I live in Houston so this has been all over the news. Undoubtedly, the design and strength of guardrails has improved over the decades, but this one had passed inspection 2 years ago.

[kentauros]

14. I'd say the inspection was the same as for all such inspections: structural integrity.

Design flaws didn't factor into it. That's an entirely different kind of inspection anyway, leading to replacement.

I know that bridge, too, and many like it around town. 45-S is perpetually under construction, and yet they can't spare a little extra to replace railings like that with full concrete barriers.

[PoliticAverse]

2. According to the following AP article the bus has lap belts....

From: http://wtop.com/education/2015/09/houston-school-bus-crash-kills-student-4-other-people-hurt/

The bus was purchased new in 2008, and was equipped with lap belts. It wasn’t immediately clear if students were wearing the lap belts. Nathan Graf, the district’s general manager for transportation, said it’s optional for students to wear the belts because enforcing their use is too difficult for drivers.

[Igel]

6. They're right. It is too difficult for drivers to enforce.

And if it were enforced, within a couple of years there'd be an outcry over how horrible enforcement is, with class action lawsuits and a PR piranha festival over unequal enforcement outcomes and zero-tolerance policies.

You tell a bunch of kids to put on their seat belts and they don't, what do you do? Sit and wait? It's you and 40 kids.

And if you're on the freeway and kids unbuckle? Do you stop and then wait?

Do you refer them for discipline? What if there's a racial skew in compliance, even if it just reflects bus ridership demographics?

It's lose-lose. It's a good idea, until you actually think about implementing it.

[sarge43]

9. A lot of people have thought about it and arrived at the same conclusion

It's unenforcible and impractical. Further, how many school buses are there tooling around every day and how many accidents there are? The kids are statistically safer on a school bus than they are at school or at home.

[Travis_0004]

4. I also wonder how you design a seat belt for a kindergardner, that works for a freshmen

There is a big range to cover for student sizes, and I just don't think kids will wear them anyway.

[sarge43]

7. Yup

I had baby hobbits and behemoths K thru 8 on my wheels o' fun.

[Omaha Steve]

8. Poll: Do you think students should be required to wear seatbelts while riding in a school bus?

http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/atascocita/news/do-you-think-students-should-be-required-to-wear-seatbelts/poll_2d9d9e0a-5d5c-11e5-b9be-f3a6c50a5bae.html

In light of recent accidents involving school buses, the Houston Educational Support Personnel Union held a press conference Thursday to call for seat belts in all Texas school buses. Do you think students should be required to wear a seatbelt while on the school bus?

Yes is currently 90.5% btw.

[sarge43]

10. Now that 90.5% can come up with a practical way to implement and enforce it. n/t

[Omaha Steve]

11. Only six states mandate seat belts in buses including Texas

The mechanism is there. But you know how Texas is on taxes.

The union wants a priority on three point belts for grade school buses ASAP!

https://www.cga.ct.gov/2010/rpt/2010-R-0055.htm

Texas

Texas requires each (1) bus purchased by a school district starting September 1, 2010 and (2) school-chartered bus contracted for use by a school district starting September 1, 2011, to be equipped with three-point seat belts for the passengers and the driver. But the requirement takes effect only if the legislature appropriates money to reimburse school districts for the cost of installing the belts. According to John Ralph, of the Texas Association for Pupil Transportation, the state has appropriated $10 million for equipping buses with seat belts, contingent on the legislature's approval of an implementation plan. Ralph states that the $10 million is enough to equip approximately 1,500 of the 2,500 new school buses Texas school districts acquired in the 2008-09 school year. He said Texas has about 39,000 school buses operating in the state.

Texas requires the state board of education to develop and provide to each school district instructions on the proper use of three-point seat belts, and makes the board the clearinghouse for districts seeking information on school bus safety, including complying with the seat belt law using school buses originally purchased without seat belts. Under the law, school districts must require students to wear seat belts on buses equipped with them, and they may develop a disciplinary policy to enforce the seat belts' use.

The law allows people to donate three-point seat belts, or money for their purchase, and allows a school district's board of trustees to acknowledge this by displaying a “small, discreet” sign on the side or back of the bus. (But the sign may not be an advertisement for the donor.)

It also requires each school district to file an annual report with the Texas Education Agency on accidents involving its school buses. The report must include information on (1) the type of bus involved, (2) whether it had seat belts, (3) the number of students and adults involved in the accident, (4) the number and types of injuries sustained by the bus passengers, and (5) whether the injured passengers were wearing seat belts at the time of the accident. The agency must publish the reports on its website (Texas Tran. Code Ann. § 547.701 (e) and Ed. Code Ann. § 34.012 through 34.015).