After fatal school bus crash, Gov. DeWine forms task force to find safety solutions

A fatal school bus crash in Clark County last week has rekindled a decades-old debate: Why doesn't Ohio mandate seat belts on school buses?

Federal law requires belts in buses that weigh less than 10,000 pounds, but states can decide whether to mandate them for the larger buses most children use.

"Seat belts are the one area of school bus safety where there is not consensus," said Dan Tierney, spokesman for Gov. Mike DeWine.

Safety advocates say seat belts save lives, but districts across the county have long voiced concerns about the costs and whether other safety upgrades are more effective.

That lack of consensus is why Gov. Mike DeWine is forming a school bus safety task force, telling reporters the committee will "look at what the data says," "what other states have done," and potentially recommend legal changes to Ohio's legislature.

"What we can do is bring the experts together and see if there are other things that can be done to improve school bus safety," Tierney said. "That's just as important as asking the question about safety belts. Is there modern technology that can help make school buses safer?"

Ohio's fatal crash

August 22 was the first day of school for Northwestern Local School District in Clark County, but the traditionally happy day turned tragic after 11-year-old Aiden Clark was thrown from his bus and died.

According to Ohio State Highway Patrol, a minivan crossed the center line on state Route 41, and the driver steered toward the shoulder to avoid a head-on crash. The two vehicles still collided, and the impact sent the bus over an embankment where it rolled and landed on its top.

Clark was declared dead at the scene, and more than 20 other children were injured. Minivan driver Hermanio Joseph, 35, was charged with vehicular homicide.

More: Criminal charge filed against driver involved in fatal Springfield school bus crash

"What we have now is inadequate to protect children fully," School Bus Safety Alliance Rudy Breglia said. "I’d bet that if they had seat belts on that bus, that child would not have been ejected and the injuries would have been much less."

But others want to wait for official reports before drawing any conclusions.

"It's unclear whether this accident would be the type of collision where seat belts would have helped, or made it more difficult for first responders," Tierney said. "We just don't know that because it's still being investigated."

Conflicting recommendations

Six states mandate seat belts on school buses, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. They are California, Florida, Nevada, New Jersey, Iowa and New York. Three more (Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas) require seat belts pending approval by local jurisdictions.

"I look at seat belts the same way I do fire extinguishers," Breglia said. "Both save lives."

Ohio PTA agrees. For years, its board has pushed to require seat belts in all new school buses and has reaffirmed that belief in the wake of the Clark County crash.

Federal agencies like the National Transportation Safety Board have also concluded that high seat backs and other school bus safety features don't protect students in rollover crashes.

"The position of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is that seat belts save lives,” Administrator Mark Rosekind said during a 2015 speech. “That is true whether in a passenger car or in a big yellow bus.”

But the question of whether seat belts are the most cost-effective upgrade districts can make isn't as clear cut.

Alabama's Department of Education tasked researchers at the University of Alabama with exploring this question in 2007. The group spent three years on the issue and concluded that while seat belts "would make already safe school buses even safer," they might not be the best way for districts to spend their limited dollars.

"If funding is to be spent on school bus safety, it appears more lives could be saved by investing in enhanced safety measures in loading/unloading zones," according to the report. "These treatments are likely more cost-effective than seat belts."

One of the reasons was that fatal school bus crashes are rare events. Children riding on buses are 70 times more likely to get to school safely than those commuting in cars, according to the NHTSA.

The other reason was the cost. Seat belts not only increase the price of a new bus, they decrease the number of seats by as much as 18%, according to the Alabama study.

And that raises the question of who pays for those additional costs.

"When you have young students, the kindergartners, they really have a hard time putting themselves in a seat belt, especially if they are disabled in some way," Rep. Adam Bird, R-New Richmond, said. "You are probably going to have to have a second adult on the bus as an aide if you’re going to mandate seat belts."

Governor's task force

The last time Ohio's state lawmakers looked at adding a seat belt requirement was in 2018, and the legislation didn't get beyond an initial hearing.

But Senate Education Committee Chair Andrew Brenner, R-Delaware, told the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau that he's open to having the conversation.

"I'm probably where the NTSB is," Brenner said, meaning he would support requiring seat belts on new buses but leave the decision on whether to retrofit existing buses up to local school boards. "The problem is we have so many existing buses, and the steep costs associated with upgrading them."

Bird, a former superintendent and chair of the House Primary and Secondary Education Committee, had a similar opinion but wants to see what the task force comes up with.

"I don’t believe we’ve had a task force study this issue for several years, possibly even decades," Bird said. "I think it's appropriate given what happened."

DeWine's task force also received support from Democrats.

"It's a real shame that the consequence of not having some safety measures in place possibly contributed to a loss of life," Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, said. "We should really take a look at it."

She wants to see numbers for retrofitting all of Ohio's existing school buses and any additional costs that go along with them.

"This reminds me of the argument about seat belts in cars," Antonio said. "It was fought for a long time, but seat belts save lives."

Anna Staver is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio lawmakers support school bus safety task force after fatal crash