Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 22, 1994 TAG: 9404220022
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By ANNE PHELAN-ADAMS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Some called it a ``freak accident.'' Some blamed conditions of the narrow, unpaved and windy road. His mother, who was driving the bus, probably blames herself. But the real blame in this child's death was that he wasn't wearing a seat belt. If he had been, he would have walked away unscathed, just as his younger sister did.
Daniel Gary Taylor couldn't wear a seat belt because there aren't any on Virginia's school buses. We spend millions of dollars mandating seat belts in passenger cars and enforcing seat-belt laws. We spend millions more immunizing our children, educating them about the dangers of drugs and alcohol, and treating their various injuries and illnesses. Yet we don't spend a dime on seat belts for school buses.
I've heard many excuses: ``If the bus went up in flames in an accident, we couldn't extricate all the children from their seat belts.'' ``The driver can't be responsible for getting the children to buckle up.'' ``It would cost too much to retrofit the buses.'' These excuses are reminiscent of ones I've heard about not buckling up in passenger cars, and they're all bad ones.
First, a passenger is much more likely to die from colliding with the interior of a vehicle or being ejected from it than from the flames of a wreckage. If he were wearing a seat belt, he'd probably be conscious and able to unbuckle himself.
Second, school-bus drivers can get kids to buckle up the same way the driver of a passenger vehicle does: No one goes anywhere until everyone's buckled. If a child refuses, it's the parent's responsibility, not the driver's
Finally, we know from statistics on seat belts and air bags on passenger cars how much money we can save on medical and rehabilitation costs of severely injured survivors.
As a physician who's worked in emergency medicine and the mother of four school-age children, I feel both professionally and personally involved in this issue. I've seen firsthand the injuries to unbelted bodies when they collide with unyielding pavement, metal and glass in a motor-vehicle accident. I've picked out the glass, sewed up the gashes and called the neurosurgeons about the head injuries.
I also regularly put my children, unbuckled, on school buses. I've ridden on school buses and noticed how hard the metal seat backs are, and how much glass there is. I'm aware how little control we have over ``the other guy.''
I also know firsthand that seat-belt use on school buses is feasible. In Montgomery County, Md., where we lived recently, all school buses and all cars and vans that transported children (including day-care vehicles) had seat belts. All children were required to buckle up. The system worked fine for the most part; infractions were handled like any other violation of school rules. More significantly, my kids say they prefer the comfortable choice of buckling up to the dubious freedom of not having to.
Daniel's death is doubly tragic. Not only did his family suffer an irrevocable loss, but his mother also undoubtedly feels the added burden of responsibility. But it wasn't her fault for making an error in driving; it wasn't the fault of the Department of Transportation for not correcting a potential road hazard; it wasn't the fault of the weather for creating a slick road. These things happen.
It was the fault of a backward state legislature that stonewalled a school-bus seat-belt bill a few years ago. One of the excuses was that it wasn't worth a million dollars to save one life. That's the wrong way to look at the cost. Instead, we should find out how much it costs per seat belt to retrofit school buses, and ask parents of it's worth that much to save their child's life. Believe me, they would say it was worth every penny.
Anne Phelan-Adams is Radford University's physician and health educator.
by CNB