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Transportation Safety

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Federal Issues

Highway

Enhance Protection for School Bus Passengers

• Devise new standards to protect school bus passengers from being thrown out of their seats or ejected when a bus sustains a front, side, or rear impact or rolls over.

Importance

In its 1999 special investigation report on bus crashworthiness, the Safety Board found that current compartmentalization, because of its design, does not protect all passengers during lateral impacts with vehicles of large mass or during rollovers.  During these types of accidents, passengers come in contact with other passengers, the side walls, the windows, or the edges of adjacent seats—all surfaces that are not designed to absorb impact energy.  The Board concluded that because of compartmentalization, school bus passengers are safer now than they were prior to landmark legislation introduced in 1977 requiring significant changes to school bus vehicle design.  However, subsequent accidents led the Board to further conclude that current compartmentalization is incomplete in that passengers do not always remain completely within the seating compartment.  Because the potential exists for an occupant crash protection system to be developed that would better protect school bus passengers in various accident scenarios, the Board asked NHTSA to develop pertinent standards for school bus occupant protection systems, and to require newly manufactured school buses to have an occupant crash protection system that meets the newly developed performance standards to retain passengers, including those in child safety restraint systems, within the seating compartment throughout the accident sequence for all accident scenarios.

Summary of Action
NHTSA responded in 2000 that it was working on a 2-year research program through the Volpe Center to scientifically determine the real-world effectiveness of current Federal requirements for school bus occupant crash protection and would evaluate alternative occupant crash protection systems in controlled laboratory tests.  In the agency’s 2002 Report to Congress on school bus research, NHTSA stated that it planned to issue an NPRM for voluntarily installed belts on buses and higher seat backs, and a requirement for lap/shoulder belts on small school buses.

On July 11, 2007, NHTSA held the Seat Belts on School Buses public meeting to bring together a roundtable of State and local government policymakers, school bus and seat manufacturers, pupil transportation associations, and public interest groups to discuss the issue of seat belts on large school buses.  At the meeting, NHTSA shared the findings of its recent full-scale frontal and side crash tests on large school buses; the simulations had evaluated compartmentalization, lap belts, lap/shoulder belts, and high seat backs.  As a result of the tests, NHTSA is developing an NPRM to increase seat back height and to establish performance requirements for voluntarily installed seat belts, both lap and lap/shoulder, with specifications on anchorage strength and belt fit.  NHTSA anticipates that the NPRM will be published in early 2008.

Action Remaining
Continue efforts to improve the occupant seating compartment on school buses.

Safety Recommendations

H-99-45 (NHTSA)
Issued November 2, 1999
Added to the Most Wanted List: 2006
Status:  Open—Acceptable Response
In 2 years, develop performance standards for school bus occupant protection systems that account for frontal impact collisions, side impact collisions, rear impact collisions, and rollovers.  (Source:A 1999 special investigation on bus crashworthiness issues [NTSB/SIR-99/04])

H-99-46 (NHTSA)
Issued November 2, 1999
Added to the Most Wanted List: 2006
Status:  Open—Acceptable Response
Once pertinent standards have been developed for school bus occupant protection systems, require newly manufactured school buses to have an occupant crash protection system that meets the newly developed performance standards and retains passengers, including those in child safety restraint systems, within the seating compartment throughout the accident sequence for all accident scenarios.  (Source:A 1999 special investigation on bus crashworthiness issues [NTSB/SIR-99/04])

November 2007

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