Seventy new large school buses equipped with lap-shoulder seat belts similar to those in passenger cars are headed to Dallas County schools more than a year before a Texas law involving school buses and seat belts goes into effect, school officials said.
"Common sense says we need to protect our kids every way possible, and that includes seat belts," said Larry Duncan, Dallas County Schools board president, in an online story Thursday for The Dallas Morning News. "I would like to see them all with seat belts overnight, but we can't get that done."
Dallas County Schools, which provides buses for the Dallas Independent School District and eight other school districts, expects to get the new large buses this month, officials said.
Dallas County Schools already has installed shoulder-lap seat belts on two buses that serve DISD elementary schools in North Dallas. And district officials said they hope belts will be in more buses in the future.
The district's decision to retrofit buses and purchase ones with seat belts comes more than a year ahead of the effective date for a Texas law that will require school buses purchased after September 2010 to have seat belts. State legislators passed the law after two Beaumont students died when their school bus overturned in 2006.
But the law is contingent on the state providing money to districts to install the seat belts, so the law may never take effect, Duncan said.
"The state dropped the ball, and we are picking the ball up," he said.
The district's board members voted to allocate an additional $500,000 to retrofit buses this school year after setting aside $750,000 last school year. It's a start, Duncan said, but the district will need to spend far more in the future to provide seat belts for every student. Retrofitting a large 77-passenger bus costs Dallas County Schools about $10,000.
Despite the district's decision to have the seat belts, the debate remains about their benefits on buses.
A 2002 report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration about shoulder-lap seat belts in school buses concluded that "lap belts appear to have little, if any, benefit in reducing serious-to-fatal injuries in severe frontal crashes."
The design of school buses, with their big, plush seats and lengthy body, makes them safe, transportation safety experts say.
A small but vocal group contends that more crash tests need to be conducted to conclude that lap-shoulder seat belts would protect students in a side-impact crash.
