Safety belts - and school buses.

A recent school bus crash has again raised the age old question of safety belts !

We are obliged by law to wear a fastened safety belt when we drive or are a passenger in any car or van, and yet there is no such provision if we or our children ride in a bus.

Many tourist coaches have included passenger safety belts in recent years, probably as a result of several horror bus crashes which attracted headline media attention. The difference is that these coaches travel main highways at expressway speed and " safety " is a selling point when attracting custom.

Most see it differently when considering school buses and the ordinary bus system that takes us to work and back. It would be a huge cost to insist on installing safety belts and obviously if we insist on this sort of safety upgrade it would be inconsistent not to ban all forms of standing passengers.

That leads to two other sticking points. The requirement to insist that all passengers secure their belt - and the problem of vandalism. For some people, vandalising public transport is almost an art form.

Past and present governments have steered clear of this issue because to insist on seat belts in school buses would mean a huge jump in the cost of this service. In a collision a bus is safer than a car because of it's size, and buses are generally travelling at much lower speeds within the city road system.

Statistics support this point of view. There is no comparison between the rate of deaths and injuries to bus passengers compared to those who ride in private cars.

Obviously it would be preferable from a safety point of view to have every passenger in all forms of transport - including trains - secured by a seat belt, but that form of ultimate safety is neither practical or possible.

It is a subject that will be removed to the back burner - until another minor incident with a school bus returns it to the fore !