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How come school buses don't require seatbelts?

There are a few reasons:

1) In an accident, the larger the ratio of your vechiles weight to the other vehicles weight, the less damage you will have. There isn't much that a bus can hit that weighs more. Thus in normal collisions with cars, signs, SUVs, etc... the damage done to a bus is minor. Only if a bus hits a brick wall or a semi will there be a need for restraints.
2) Seat belts are primarilly meant to keep you in your seat (flying out of a car has the highest chance of being killed). The high seat backs in a bus prevent most people from flying out of the bus. Even if you fly over the seat in front of you, the shear bus size makes flying out of the bus highly improbable (you will get some bumps and bruises, maybe a broken bone or two - but you will still be alive).
3) Most serious bus accidents occur when a bus overturns (see #1 for the reason that the rest of the accidents are minor). If a bus of 30 small children overturns how will a driver have enough time to unbuckle 30 kids before a possible fire burns them? Note: on city busses that I ride all the time it takes 3 minutes for a driver to buckle/unbuckle one handicapped rider. Imagine 3 minutes times 30 kids in a fire...
4) No federal law.
5) Too much hassile in non emergencies. Imagine being a driver that has to enforce a seatbelt law. Every 30 seconds you'd have to stop the bus to buckle in another unruly child... Sure the driver could ignore the law - but then he/she would risk heavy fines.

Some local places are starting to make seatbelts manditory in busses. This is a trend that will likely do little to save lives in my opinion.
 
Bus design relies on compartmentization to protect occupants during a crash. Basically, you are supposed to bounce off of the seat back in front of you. The problem with seat belts from a pragmatic standpoint is that unbuckling small children after a crash could be a logistical problem and older kids won't wear them. Reports of stringing the belts across the aisle to trip other riders and using the metal buckles as "weapons" are somewhat common. Also, the seat backs on a bus do not have head restraints so a belted rider might experience whiplash after a crash. These problems can be solved, but it takes money and effort.

If I'm on a bus with seat belts and shoulder harnesses, I always wear them even if their use is optional. Sometimes these belts are only located in the front row (since there is no seat back in front of them) and I'll sit there so I can wear the belts. I don't trust the compartmental design.
 
I've always wondered the same thing - real lovely accident scenes come to mind with high ceilings and 50 kids flying through the air at 55 mph. Weeeee!
 
NJ mandated all new school buses built in or after 1992 to have seat belts, and I remember the "WTF"s one year when the new buses came out. Getting everyone to wear them is a whole other issue, and no, the "Everyone wears the belt or I don't move" tactic doesn't work.

I don't know about other states.
 
It would cost money to implement, and my school district feels the need to waste their money. My school just bought every classroom a Pentium 4 system that will only be used for attendance, occasional word processing, and no multimedia or anything for which a cpu like that is useful. One of my teachers doesn't even use it; she is afraid of it and only wants to use her macintosh, and the new system is just sitting on a table in her room. I volunteered to take it, but she wouldn't let me 🙁.
 
I always wondered why there were no seatbelts, even when i was a youngin'.. cause my parents always enforced the seatbelt thing heavily... i was puzzled as to why buses did not have them.. esp. school buses.
 
are there many head injuries in bus accidents from people banging into the passenger in front of them,it's a major deal in cars with unbelted passengers in back seats,impact speed may be slower generally in buses
 
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