School Bus Fleet, November 2015

18 SCHOOL BUS FLEET NOVEMBER 2015 Larry Bannon vice president of new business development for seating supplier SynTec Seating Solutions says that the priority should always be getting students on yellow buses whether they have seat belts or not We would not be in favor of lap shoulder belts being mandated if it meant fewer kids are going to be riding the bus Bannon says But if youve got the funding for three point restraints and if your duty cycle warrants it go for it Bob Downin sees the issue as a matter of priorities Downin formerly served as safety coordinator and assistant transportation director at Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp in Columbus Indiana which voluntarily equipped its buses with three point belts He points out that school districts typically add other types of equipment to their buses that arent required Theyve got GPS cameras Theyve got all kinds of devices on that bus that cost as much as the lap shoulder belts Downin says We chose lap shoulder belts over a c We dont have that many hot days in Indiana The contracting route Some school districts have implemented three point belts by adding them to their transportation contract requiring the school bus contractor to provide buses with the restraints That was the case at Buffalo N Y Public Schools In 2009 the district put its transportation contract out to bid for the first time in about 25 years Al Diamico the current director of transportation at Buffalo says that he and then director John Fahey saw the bid as an opportunity to get what we felt is the best safety equipment out there for our buses John and I felt strongly about the three point belts The new contract called for the school bus operator to have three point restraints on 20 of its buses in the first year 40 in the second year and so on The district also specified technology that wasnt in its previous contract including GPS and video surveillance systems Yet even with all of the equipment enhancements the act of getting competition flowing with a new bid resulted in a cheaper contract for Buffalo The districts cost per four hour bus meaning morning and afternoon routes decreased about 24 Bottom line We ended up saving money Diamico says We saved millions of dollars by bidding this out Helena Mont Public Schools also added three point belts to its contract bid specs in 2011 Transportation Manager Thomas Cohn says that while there was an increase in its contract rate the district saw it as a sound investment We looked at the cost In the end the final result was What is the cost of a childs life Cohn says You cant put a price on a childs life We determined that the cost of seat belts is relatively cheap compared to the loss of a life Cohn says that assessment of the need for three point belts came largely from viewing interior surveillance footage of school bus rollover crashes in which students are ejected from their seats Three point belts Cohn argues will keep the passengers in their seating compartments in a rollover or side impact crash Thats the type of evidence that shows that if you have seat belts on the bus those kids are going to survive a catastrophic accident Cohn has a personal as well as professional stake in the matter His 8 year old son rides the school bus Impact on bus capacity When Californias three point belt requirement became effective in 2004 and 2005 another key concern among pupil transportation officials was loss of bus capacity Due to their width and thickness the lap shoulder belted seats that were available at the time significantly reduced the number of passengers that a school bus could hold For example in 2006 Newport Mesa USD bought 11 buses that would normally have held a maximum of 84 passengers but the three point restraint seating cut the capacity to 65 We are still paying for the reduced capacity of our older buses Meslin says Those buses are the biggest in size but not in capacity In the years since Californias mandate went into effect seat belt suppliers have developed lap shoulder belted seats that are the same width as a regular school bus seat 39 inches and can hold two larger students or three smaller students Depending on the configuration of the bus a few seating positions may still be lost with the incorporation of three point belts but Meslin says 3 POINT BELTS Jill Gayaldo director of transportation at Elk Grove Unified School District in California says that the added cost of three point restraints wasnt going to make or break our ability to buy new buses