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- DANGERS LURK IN SCHOOL BUS SEAT BELTS
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- The National Transportation Safety Board has concluded
that school buses equipped with seat belts pose dangers to children. By
holding a child's pelvis firmly in place, the belts allow the torso to
crack like a whip -- with the child's head striking a seat back or a hard
object with greater force than if the child's whole body had been thrown.
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- The board recommended instead that bus seats be redesigned.
That could include arm rests, ceiling pads, making seat backs even higher,
or molding the seats and seat backs to the human form and covering them
with something less slippery. That, however, might reduce capacity to
two children a seat, rather than three.
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- o The NTSB says that while lap belts are clearly a
problem, lap-shoulder combinations are not much better.
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- o Only New York and New Jersey currently require seat
belts on the buses.
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- o Florida and Louisiana will require their installation
on new buses in a few years.
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- o California's legislature has just passed a school
bus seat belt bill, but the state's governor has not said whether he will
sign it or not.
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- School bus accidents produce only nine deaths a year
in the U.S. Even with better protection against side impact accidents and
rollovers, there would still be five or so deaths annually, experts say.
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- In fact, the low death rate has produced such a sketchy
database that investigators could not find accidents involving belt- equipped
buses to analyze. So they had to rely on computer models instead.
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- Source: Matthew L. Wald, "No Gain Seen in Seat Belts
on School Bus," New York Times, September 22, 1999.
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- For NYT text http://search.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?getdoc+site+iib-site+181+
0+wAAA+seat%7Ebelts
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- For NTSB report http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/1999/SIR9904.htm
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- FAA REGULATIONS CREATE ANOTHER PROBLEM
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- The Federal Aviation Administration has decreed that
all aircraft certified since 1988 must install superstrong airline seats
that won't break apart during a "survivable" crash. So at a
cost of $5 billion over 10 years, all U.S. airlines are voluntarily retro-fitting
their seats.
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- But this has generated a new problem. Many passengers
face an additional danger: if the seat in front acts as a buffer, one's
head suddenly becomes a 260-pound bowling ball on impact -- swinging it
down to one's knees or even the floor.
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- So the airlines are having to spend another $600 million
-- on top of a developmental cost of $25 million -- for airbags to cushion
a crash shock when the new seats are installed.
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- Is the money, and the increase in fares it will prompt,
justified?
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- o Of the 364 U.S. airline accidents between 1983 and
1996, 24 were deemed very serious by authorities and 17 were called "survivable."
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- o Of the 1,759 passengers on those 17 survivable flights,
78 percent survived, 15 percent died from blunt-trauma injuries, and five
percent died from smoke inhalation or fire.
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- o Airbags or some other extra restraint may have helped
save the 15 percent -- and some of the 5 percent may have gotten out if
they hadn't been knocked out by the impact.
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- o So experts believe that the new airbags will save
no more than 25 lives a year -- at a total cost of $5.6 billion.
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- Out of 700 million passengers who fly each year, only
160 persons lose their lives, on average.
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- Source: Howard Banks, "In for a Dime, in for $5.6
Billion," Forbes, October 4, 1999.
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- David M. Sander, Ph.D E-Mail: dmsander@ix.netcom.com
Sander & Associates, Consultants Fax1: (916) 361-7281 2561 East
Tiffany Lane Fax2: (916) 368-1080 Sacramento, CA 95827-1403
Phone: (916) 362-8433
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