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Yes

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I completely believe that the only answer to this question is yes. I have heard and read so many debates about this issue, some of which make a good argument against seatbelts, but I only see a positive outcome in seatbelt use on school busses. The ultimate question you have to ask yourself is, Is my child's safety more important than the few extra minutes it takes to buckle a seatbelt?.

The number one argument I have heard against seatbelt usage is how to, and who will enforce it. In my opinion, there is an easy solution to both of these questions. First of all, whether or not seatbelts are an issue, bus drivers already have too much responsibility for one person to take on. How much could it possibly cost to employ one person to be an assistant to the driver? This assistant could easily walk the length of the bus and ensure each child is safely buckled in, and quickly help the smaller children. The assistant could monitor bus activity and ensure that everyone stays in their seats until their stop. This alone would cut back on the zoo like environment of most school busses today.

The next issue is how to enforce seatbelt usage. One person I talked to asked if I thought the police were going to pull over busses and do random checks. Not only is that a waste of time and resources, but it's completely unnecessary. When I was in school, if you didn't follow the rules of the school bus, you were punished at school. We had consequences like being suspended from bus riding to being suspended from school. Why not do the same to motivate the children to use their seatbelts? If it's mandatory, and they refuse, they can be punished just the same as breaking any other rule.

Another argument I hear on this subject questions the necessity of seatbelts in a school bus. People seem to assume they are safe and nothing is going to happen. Although bus accidents are admittedly rare, they do happen. And usually there are injuries that could have been prevented by a seatbelt. You don't think twice about buckling your child's seatbelt in your car, so what makes a bus any different? A bus has a lot more occupants, and foreign objects that could fly around in an accident. There is so much open space in a bus that a child could be tossed around in if it were tumbling in an accident. Even just a rear end collision could easily cause your child to be thrown from their seat into something dangerous. Seatbelts are designed to keep you in place in an accident, thus keeping you from

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