Seat belts key to safety on school buses

I rode a public school bus recently on a third-grade field trip to the Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum in Phoenix from Tempe and back, clinging on for dear life the entire time.

A speed bump you barely notice in a car tosses the kids in the back seats six inches into the air. A right turn almost put me in the lap of the teacher across the aisle.

So while I applaud new federal rules that require higher seat backs and new seat-belt standards for the nation's 474,000 school buses, I don't think they're enough.

All new school buses must have 24-inch seat backs, up from the current 20 inches, which should better protect child passengers by keeping them from being thrown over seats in the event of a crash. The change also requires new small buses, which are more prone to roll over than full-size buses, to be equipped with three-point seat belts.

I want seat belts on all school buses.

The U.S. Department of Transportation, which issued the new requirements, acknowledged in a report that lap-and-shoulder belts could enhance the safety of large school buses, too, but added, "Realistically . . . we recognize that funds provided for pupil transportation are limited."

The new regulations alone are expected to cost more than $7 million annually nationwide.

But as I bounced along in that school bus, I watched the little kids around me hang on to the seat back in front of them, hooting like they were on some roller coaster.

I wouldn't let them do the same thing in my car.