EDMONTON – A school bus crash north of Calgary on Friday that critically injured three children has renewed debate about seat belts and whether they should be on buses.
“I think it’s something that needs to be revisited,” said ER physician and U of A researcher Dr. Louis Francescutti. “Obviously if a child’s seriously injured, the question begs itself: would a seat belt have made a difference?”
Read more: Multiple children injured in school bus crash north of Calgary.
Nearly 300,000 children ride a school bus every day in Alberta. Currently, school buses in the province do not have seat belts, but Friday’s crash has parents wondering if the policy should be changed.
“I think it’s safety,” said Shannon Whiting, an Edmonton mother of four. “Kids have to have seat belts in a car, so they should in a bus too.”
“Just stop and think about it,” added Francescutti, “you’re in a plane, you wear a seat belt, you’re in a rollercoaster, you wear a seat belt, you’re in a car, you wear a seat belt. Just about every other vehicle that you’re in you have to wear a seat belt. So, why are school buses so special that you don’t have to wear seat belts on them? Just intuitively, it doesn’t make sense.”
The province looked at the issue five years ago. A safety review recommended that seat belts should not be installed on Alberta buses because the belts could put students at great risk of being hurt if they weren’t worn properly or didn’t fit correctly.
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“We’re not going to come to any fast conclusions as a result of what happened today,” said Premier Alison Redford. “It was terribly unfortunate and my heart goes out to the families who are dealing with that.”
The Premier added that if there is a clear indication that seat belts would have made a difference in this case, the Province will act.
“We always revisit these issues and we’ll certainly do that, but I just ask you to, at this point, we’re dealing with a difficult situation. Let’s don’t just start making that link until we know what actually happened and what the circumstances were.”
“Studies are conflicting,” said Transportation Minister Ric McIver. “Some actually say you’re safer in a bus without a seat belt, other ones say you’re safer with… I assure Albertans we talk about this and review it on a regular basis.”
Francescutti would like to see the evidence looked at more closely.
“School buses rarely crash, so that’s the good news,” he said. “But, the bad news is, when they do crash, the laws of physics don’t differ for school buses than any other vehicle on the road. So, if kids are not restrained in a moving vehicle, and there’s a crash, it’s just common sense that kids are going to be injured.”
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