The Alabama State Department of Education commissioned a study of school bus seat belts, using 12 buses (less than 1% of the fleet) equipped with seat belts and digital camera systems. The initial year of the study established baseline rates for normal situations. About 64,000 pupil observations were gathered from 11 buses on Tuesday-Thursday afternoon routes, and one control bus on Monday-Friday AM and PM routes. 44,000 of the observations were used to estimate afternoon route seatbelt use as 65.9%. Given the small sample size, this value should be considered as representative of thefleet, but not exact. There was large variation in belt use from bus to bus (94.5% to 4.8%). The degree of scatter was confirmed through large values of the coefficient of variation. Trends were documented for variation by day of week, morning versus afternoon, time on route, effects of bus aides, and changes in use over the school year. The findings confirmed the opinions of national experts and Alabama pupil transportation managers. Higher seat backs blocked the view of drivers in trying to control pupil conduct and enforce seat belt use. Only 65% of the time could UTCA researchers examining digital images in a lab see pupils well enough to determine whether a seat belt was being used. Bus drivers will be able to see far fewer pupils while on the road, so it is not realistic to expect them to enforceseat belt use.
Abstract