WASHINGTON, D.C. – Five years after it issued a comprehensive report on its school bus safety research, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration declined to propose a requirement that three-point seatbelts be installed in full-size school buses – which agency research has shown to provide better occupant protection than lap belts or compartmentalization alone – because its is too expensive to implement, it said.
Instead, the agency is proposing to require shoulder/lap belts on small buses, to improve compartmentalization on large school buses and to establish lap/shoulder belt requirements for districts that wish to install them voluntarily. Continue reading