Seat Belts

Contrary to the wishes of a parent group, the Great Valley school board has voted against installing seat belts on school buses. In a report presented Monday night, board member R. Christopher Klemm, who chaired a special transportation safety subcommittee, said that while bus travel "does involve some risk," a federal report last year called school buses "the safest form of surface transportation. " Klemm recommended against seat belts "because of the lack of proven benefits, the status of the district's contracted bus arrangement and the liability issues involved.

While I agree with David B. Wilson's final point that seat belts are no cure for carelessness, I was disappointed at the twisted logic and oversight presented in his Jan. 14 Op-ed Page column. Looking only at death statistics (including pedestrians?), ignores a much larger population of car accident victims, those who are seriously injured or permanently disabled. The emotional and financial burden of that group on their families and society is tremendous and deserves inclusion in any evaluation of the seat-belt laws.

After a delay of several months, the Cherry Hill school board has decided to install seat belts in 10 new school buses. The board decided in May to install the belts but delayed the installation to determine whether the buckles of the belts were the lightest weight available. One concern of seat belt opponents was their potential use as weapons by schoolchildren. Although the buckles on the two major brands of seat belts on the market are not as light as school board members desired, the board decided at its Aug. 8 work session to proceed with the installation.

Bunny Stoddard wants all the people in Chester County to use their seat belts when in their automobiles. Stoddard says her own daughter, Kelly, 23, is living proof that using a seat belt works. Bunny Stoddard is manager of the Chester County Highway Safety Project in West Chester, a PennDot agency that promotes highway safety through education. The project is part of a two-year federal program to increase safety belt use in the United States to 70 percent by 1992. The national safety belt usage rate now is 49 percent.

Medford Township has been selected as one of four municipalities in the state to undergo an intensive campaign to encourage drivers to comply with New Jersey's mandatory seat-belt law. At its meeting Dec. 15, council members were informed that the township will receive a $17,000 federal grant for an enforcement project designed to increase seat-belt usage to 50 percent from the current 35 percent compliance statewide. For almost three years, drivers in New Jersey have had to wear seat belts, as have passengers in the front seat of any vehicle.

Hardly a year goes by that the New Jersey Legislature does not discuss the possibility of requiring school districts and private busing services to equip their vehicles with passenger restraints. The issue has not been addressed this year, but it probably will arise in the coming months, according to Linda Wells, acting director of the New Jersey Bureau of Pupil Transportation. "Of course, nothing has come of the idea in all of these years," she said. "Basically, that's because there just hasn't been any evidence that seat-beltless buses aren't safe.

ICAN'T IMAGINE being any part of the seemingly horrible scene that must have played out in the bus crash with the children from the Norris Square Day Camp. But the obvious question still remains: Why isn't there a mandatory law for seat belts for children on school buses? We can look at every possible cause into this accident - underage driver, driving at an excessive speed, inexperience of the driver to handle the conditions, training, etc. Yet the fact remains that there may have been some potentially avoidable injuries if, instead of some of the young occupants flying through the air while the bus was skidding on its side, they had the proper means of protecting themselves with seat belt restraints that should be mandatory under the law!

Requiring teachers and students to wear safety belts when driving their cars on school-district business is "intrusive into their personal rights," according to Upper Merion school board President David W. Hoffa. Discussing a proposed safety-belt policy Tuesday night, Hoffa suggested that the restriction apply only to employees who are operating district-owned vehicles while engaged in school-related activities. As written, the policy would require students and employees to buckle up while driving to school-sponsored activities, such as educational conferences or football games.

Avon Grove school board members at their meeting Tuesday endorsed the installation of seat belts on district school buses for children under the age of 4. Board member Kathryn Steele said yesterday that the action was taken at the request of the district's school bus companies, which are installing seat belts to accommodate some drivers whose young children ride along on the morning and afternoon runs. Board member Jean Steele described the vote as a formality and a contractual matter.

Mapping out national highway projects only three months at a time makes about as much sense as setting off on a cross-country road trip with threadbare tires and a near-empty gas tank. But that's official U.S. policy at the moment, as a result of familiar congressional gridlock over a new multibillion-dollar federal highway bill that could impact 3 million jobs. Just as Washington's spending authority was about to expire last week, House Republican leaders won approval for a stopgap 90-day highway bill, forcing it upon the Democratic-controlled Senate, which had come up with a far better $109 billion two-year spending plan.

DEAR ABBY: What do you think of a grandmother who has her 7-year-old grandson sit in a baby car seat when she's driving? The boy weighs 65 pounds and is 4 feet tall. His parents don't want to cause a rift with her, as she helps them after school. He looks ridiculous and must feel embarrassed in front of his friends. Should relatives intervene? - Granny's Neighbor DEAR NEIGHBOR: I took your question to a public affairs specialist with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

SION, Switzerland - A tourist bus slammed head-on into a concrete wall in a Swiss Alps tunnel, killing 28 people, mostly children returning from a ski vacation. Swiss police said Wednesday the vehicle was not speeding and everyone was wearing seat belts. The bus was carrying students about age 12 from two Belgian schools when it crashed shortly after 9 p.m. Tuesday night on a highway near the southern town of Sierre, Switzerland. The horrific accident in the short Tunnel de Geronde left the front of the bus mangled, trapping people inside.

ON A RECENT chilly, sunny weekday afternoon, the corner of Cottage Street and Bleigh Avenue, in Holmesburg, was nearly deserted. Students were tucked unheard and unseen inside the Edwin Forrest School, and residents of the tidy rowhouses across the street were mostly off at work. Elizabeth Biddle waited. She adjusted her gloves and straightened her hat, the prim, white-and-checkered cap of a crossing guard. Then the swarm descended. Within seconds, the corner was crawling like a beehive.

A collision between a dump truck and a school bus in rural Chesterfield Township, Burlington County, on Thursday morning killed an 11-year-old triplet and critically injured her two sisters and another student. A State Police spokesman said Isabelle Tezsla, a pupil at Chesterfield Township Elementary School, died at the scene. Her father is Sgt. Anthony Tezsla, a state trooper, said the spokesman, Trooper Christopher Kay. Tezsla is assigned to the State House in Trenton, according to a former state police official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

NEW TEENAGE drivers must get more experience behind the wheel and have fewer pals in the car, thanks to the beefed-up safety demands of "Lacey's Law," which took effect yesterday. Named after Lacey Gallagher, the Little Flower High School senior who died on her prom night in 2007 when the SUV in which she was riding crashed, the new law: * Limits an under-18 new driver with a junior license to one under-18 passenger who is not a family member, unless a parent or guardian is present.

The Kennett Township, Chester County, police chief rear-ended another vehicle while on patrol last week, then left the scene and returned to it after hearing the 911 dispatch, state police said Tuesday. In an incident report released Monday, state police from the Avondale barracks said the crash caused by Chief Albert J. McCarthy occurred at 12:33 p.m. Oct. 4 on southbound Route 82 south of McFarlan Road. McCarthy, 60, "suffering from a medical condition, lost focus and struck the rear" of a 2000 Jeep driven by Paula A. Sharpe, 38, of Hockessin, Del. No charges have been filed against him. Trooper Corey Monthei, a state police spokesman, said Tuesday that investigators had concluded that McCarthy "had no intention of avoiding responsibility" when he left the scene and that he showed no signs of alcohol impairment.

U.S.: No seat belts for school buses WASHINGTON - The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration denied a petition from safety groups, consumer advocates, and doctors to require seat belts in school buses, saying the vehicles were "already very safe. " The cost of adding belts - $5,485 to $7,346 per bus - would outweigh expected benefits, the agency said in a notice being published in the Federal Register. Requiring seat belts mught force school districts to reduce bus service and lead to more students walking or riding in cars, both of which are more dangerous than riding a bus, the agency said.

Two former Hatboro-Horsham lacrosse players were killed Saturday when a speeding vehicle in which they were riding veered off a residential Horsham street. According to police, Robert Walker Nagel, 19, of Ambler, and Edward Taylor Coombs, 19, of Horsham, were pronounced dead at the scene. Three others, including 19-year-old driver Connor McNicholas, were taken to Abington Memorial Hospital with nonlife-threatening injuries. Investigators believe McNicholas was driving at speeds "up to 99 mph" shortly before his car hit a curb, drove into a front yard near the intersection of Witmer and Norristown roads, and hit several trees.