![]() In serious collisions, such as rollover accidents, seat belts would provide an additional measure of protection for bus occupants. Some safety advocates, including pediatric medical associations, still vie for the use of seat belts in buses (especially school buses). It would add considerable expense to add seat belts to every bus and to enforce their use, which municipalities would prefer to avoid. Buses are much heavier than other vehicles, meaning they are likely to withstand a traffic collision with minimal effect on the passengers. People are seated high off the ground on buses, so the impact location with an automobile, for example, would be well beneath the seats. Students are packed in with cushioned seats very close on all sides, acting as a sort of all-around airbag. School buses are extra safe for a number of reasons. Only a few deaths occur on buses every year, in contrast to the many thousands of deaths suffered by occupants of other vehicles. In fact, school buses are considered one of the safest means of travel, even without seat belts–school buses are 40 times safer than riding in a car. Safety experts have long debated the utility of seat belts in buses. There are reasons why seat belts are not required in buses, even school buses. Passengers in buses other than school buses are not required to wear seat belts. A bill requiring all school bus passengers to wear seat belts has been proposed to the state legislature, although it has made little headway. ![]() New York City does not require most school bus passengers to wear seat belts, with an exception for special education students and very young children (per state law). The rules for whether other passengers must wear seat belts differ by school district. Children under the age of four must ride in a federally approved, properly-installed child safety seat. School bus drivers are required to wear seat belts. Any large school bus manufactured after July 1, 1987, must be equipped with seat belts, and those belts must be accessible to passengers. New York State law does, in fact, require seat belts to be installed on school buses. If you’ve been injured in a bus accident or other traffic accident in Goshen, the Hudson Valley, or New York City, reach out to a seasoned New York bus crash lawyer for help. Why is it, then, that when you get onto a city bus, there’s not a seatbelt to be found? Shouldn’t a vehicle with 50 people crammed inside have greater safety measures than a vehicle that seats four or five? Continue reading to learn about New York’s seatbelt laws for buses and the justification for those rules. “Seatbelts save lives,” they say and they do. Traffic safety advocates from the federal level all the way down to the town traffic cops talk about the importance of seatbelts. ![]()
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