With school bus safety week next week, how safe school buses are will be the focus.
A report by CBC’s The Fifth Estate revealed that Transport Canada did a crash test in 2010 that showed different results than the one done in 1984. The test done in ’84 determined students are safe on school buses and seat-belts aren’t needed. With the 2010 report, it showed that there would be fewer injuries in side-impact school bus crashes and roll-overs. The results of the 2010 test were never made public.
“I was a little bit surprised by the report,” says Gord Taylor, the CEO of Tri-Board Transportation. He said he isn’t sure why the report is only now coming to light.
Taylor went on to say that school buses, even without seat-belts are safe. “If (residents) don’t already know, they need to understand that school buses are the safest vehicles on the road,” he says. He went on to say, “if you ask the family where there’s been someone whose life has been lost, I think they’ll say it’s worth every bit of investment in the presence of seat-belts.”
After the report was released, Minister of Transport Marc Garneau announced that a review on the policy will be done. “Minister Garneau’s statement will begin a conversation,” Taylor says. Currently, no Canadian provinces require seat-belts. Eight U.S. states require buses to have seat-belts: Arkansas, California, Florida, Louisiana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York and Texas.
According to CBC’s report, it will cost around $10,000 per bus to retrofit them with seat-belts. Taylor adds that school buses are usually 12 year purchases. Taylor wonders what the cost would be to have them installed at the factory on new buses, rather than have old buses retrofitted.
“Seat-belts are becoming the norm in the us I think we’ll see in due course where seat-belts are offered on school buses in Ontario,” Taylor says.