24 y/o school bus driver arrested after 5 killed in rollover

Sorry they'd be that much safer with belts......

 

Well, they would be even safer with individual rear facing seats with six-point harnesses, but that isn't any more workable than adding seatbelts to the current design. Who is going to ensure the children remain belted? What happens in a fire or if they end up in water? Is there proof that adding seat belts without a major redesign of the current platform and system (thereby significantly increasing costs) would significantly increase safety?

 

Redesign ........

Sorry you hit one if my biggest pet peeves .....

I'll back out of this one....

 

How do you get that many elementary kids unbuckled in the event of a fire or water event? Buses can hold up to 48-60 passengers! Also, judging by the impact I'd say seat belts may not (total speculation) have saved those young lives. I think the problem with these drivers falls to the schools who cannot budget and have to sub out busing services. I remember when I was growing up the drivers where local moms, dads, and members of the community. Here in my town it's all controlled by peterman now. This is an absolute tragedy.

 

Then there's the matter of the backpacks full of textbooks. We used to stick them in the overhead racks which were nothing more than a shelf. Probably more effective restraining those than adding seatbelts.

 

Good Lord those backpacks! I see kids carrying those things that look like they weigh a ton! Neither I nor my kids had backpacks, but considering some of the homework we had, they would have come in handy! I wonder what the kids carry in those things that makes them so doggone heavy? From what I see of Highschool graduates, it certainly couldn't be school books...

 

^^^^ My 6th grade son has a "cubby" in a modern school, built in 06. They don't want lockers for fear of drugs and/or contraband.... he hauls ALL subjects' stuff to and fro, everyday. And he's a little guy for 12. I'm grateful his driver is a 52 y/o lady who's husband drives trucks, but still. The backpacks in the overheads in our country school, could be projectile missiles.
Could they not design seatbelts that have an "emergency release" like airlines ??? Guess you'd need a bus matron on board at all times, but it'd be worth the extra taxes, for me.

 

The buses my wife drove were rated up to 72 passengers.

 

This is very sad but with the way things are going now a days with letting any warm body drive bus or commercial vehicles. It's gonna happen.

 

And worse...

The heartbroken mother-of three children who were victims in a school bus crash has spoken out about her attempts to report the bus driver for reckless driving.

Jasmine Mateen said that since the school year started in August, her children have come home each day complaining about their bus driver.

'I have been calling complaining about this bus driver since August,' she told NBC News.

Mateen said she called the Board of Education and Woodmore Elementary School and even wrote letters to the school and to the bus driver, Johnthony Walker.

[...]

Mateen said her letter was about Walker 'slamming on breaks on purpose' and 'making all of the kids hit their head'.

She said her children would tell her horror stories about how Walker would drink 'every day on the bus', 'always cuss at them' and 'was always speeding'.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...s-says-s-seen-bus-driver-reckless-before.html
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