Should School Buses Have Seatbelts?

(Indianapolis, Ind.) - After a driver and student were killed in a school bus crash in Indianapolis Monday, some lawmakers are now calling for seatbelts to be required on buses.

Monday's crash is not a rare occurence of school buses being involved in accidents. Two have occured in southeast Indiana in the past three years.

In September 2009, a Switzerland County Schools bus was struck by a pickup truck on State Road 156. A Jac-Cen-Del Schools bus was t-boned by a large dump truck State Road 129 in Ripley County in August 2010.

No students in either crash were seriously injured, with some suffering only bumps and scrapes.

The Indiana Department of Education’s director of school transportation says adding seatbelts to buses would be nice, but it would be costly.

Michael LaRocco told the Indianapolis Star it would cost about $160 million to equip all of Indiana's 16,000 school buses with restraints.

That’s a cost neither the state nor individual districts may be willing to take on.

"We can hardly fund our schools now, let alone add on that extra expense," LaRocco said.

During a post-legislative press conference on Monday, Governor Mitch Daniels was warm to the idea of belts on buses.

"Certainly, I've heard the subject raised before and, you know, you can't be too safe where our little ones are involved so it may well be (time)," Daniels said.

Statistics show that school buses are the safest mode of transportation second only to commercial buses. About 20 people died in school bus crashes each year nationwide, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.