Petition for Rulemaking to amend FMVSS 222
This petition seeks action by NHTSA to promptly mandate the three-point-belt requirement for all seating positions on all school buses.
Click here to see the full text of the petition

Connecticut Bus Crash Leads to Legislation Proposal

     On January 9, 2010, a fatal crash occurred on a Connecticut highway when a bus carrying 16 high school students plunged off an elevated section of I-84.  One boy, Vikas Parikh, died and everyone else on board was injured in some way.  The school bus had no seat belts.
    The Hartford Courant quoted a student who had been on the bus:  “All of a sudden, we were [all] airborne . . . the bus hit like three times and we hit down finally to a stop and like half the kids, some of them were like wedged into the seats.”
     State Rep. Antonio Guerrera, from Parikh’s hometown of Rocky Hill, has not waited for a crash analysis to promise to introduce legislation this session to require seat belts on new buses.  He is co-chair of the General Assembly Transportation Committee.  Similar bills have been introduced more than 20 times in Connecticut.  The Hartford Courant has endorsed this effort.
Source: www.courant.com/news/connecticut

NTSB Report Released on Florida Bus Crash

     On November 12, 2009, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which examines all fatal and significant crashes, released its report on the Milton, Florida, school bus crash that occurred on May 28, 2008.  In that crash, 14 third graders on a field trip were in a bus that rolled over completely at least twice on a major highway.  All were wearing lap belts.  The driver (in a lap-shoulder belt) and one student (whose belt apparently was loose) had serious but not potentially disabling injuries.  None of the others had more than minor injuries.
     Florida requires new buses purchased after December 31, 2000, to have lap belts for all passengers and all passengers must use them.  The study compared this crash to a 1996 crash in Flagstaff, Arizona, in which a school bus without seat belts rolled one and a quarter times at highway speed.  In that incident, five students were ejected completely.  Four students and the driver were seriously injured; one child was left a quadriplegic and another suffered severe brain injury requiring long-term care.
    In its conclusion of the Milton, Florida, report, the NTSB stated: “Injury severity was mitigated by the use of lap belts.” This is an important finding because there have been few severe school bus crashes in which children have been wearing lap belts from which to draw conclusions regarding their effectiveness.
Source: NTSB, www.ntsb.gov/publictn/H_Acc.htm (report #HAB-09-03)